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UNBELIEF  IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY. 
A  Critical  History.     Crown  octavo.     $2.00,  net. 


HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE.     Two 
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SACERDOTALISM 


IN  THE 


NINETEENTH    CENTURY 


A  CRITICAL  HISTORY 


BY 


HENRY  C.(  SHELDON 

Professor  in  Boston  University 


New  York:  EATON  &  MAINS 
Cincinnati:  JENNINGS  &  GRAHAM 


Copyright,  1909,  Djr 
EATON  &  MAINS. 


CONTENTS 


PART  I 
THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  ECCLESIASTICAL  AUTHORITY 
SECTION  PAGE 

I.  STATEMENT  AND  DEFENSE  OF  THE  PRINCIPLE 3 

II.  THE  BEARING  OF  THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  ECCLESIASTICAL 
AUTHORITY  ON  THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  CHURCH 
AND  STATE 15 

III.  THE   BEARING   OF   THE   PRINCIPLE   OF   ECCLESIASTICAL 

AUTHORITY  ON  PERSONAL  RIGHTS  AND  LIBERTIES 31 

IV.  REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  THEME  OF  THE  CHAPTER 44 

CHAPTER  II 
PAPAL  ABSOLUTISM 
I.  GALLICANISM  IN  THE  EARLY  PART  OF  THE  NINETEENTH 

CENTURY 55 

II.  BEGINNINGS  OF  AN  ANTI-GALLICAN  OR  ULTRAMONTANE 

MOVEMENT  UNDER  DE  MAISTRE  AND  OTHERS 70 

III.  ULTRAMONTANE  PROPAGANDISM  AS  CARRIED  ON  BY  THE 

PAPACY  AND  ITS  ALLIES  UP  TO  THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL.     86 

IV.  THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL  AND  ITS  DECREES 104 

V.  DEVELOPMENTS  FOLLOWING  THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL 121 

VI.  CRITICISM  OF  THE  DOGMA  OF  PAPAL  SUPREMACY 137 

VII.  CRITICISM  OF  THE  DOGMA  OF  PAPAL  INFALLIBILITY 179 

CHAPTER  III 
SOME  FEATURES  OF  THE  SACRAMENTAL  SYSTEM 

I.  THE  GENERAL  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  SACRAMENTS 222 

II.  THE  NECESSITY  OF  BAPTISM 231 

III.  TRANSUBSTANTIATION 239 

IV.  JUDICIAL  ABSOLUTION  IN  THE  SACRAMENT  OF  PENANCE.  .  257 

CHAPTER  IV 

THE  OUTLOOK  FOR  ROMAN  SACERDOTALISM 277 

v 


vi  CONTENTS 

PART  II 
GREEK,  ANGLICAN,  AND  OTHER  TYPES 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  GREEK  TYPE,  ESPECIALLY  AS  REPRESENTED  IN  RUSSIA 
SECTION  PAGE 

I.  SCOPE  OF  DEVELOPMENTS  IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  287 
II.  POLITY  IN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 297 

III.  THE  CEREMONIAL  AND  SACRAMENTAL  SYSTEM 305 

IV.  A  COMPARATIVE  ESTIMATE  OF  GREEK  SACERDOTALISM.  . .   311 

CHAPTER  II 
THE  ANGLO-CATHOLIC  MOVEMENT 

I.  ANTECEDENTS  AND  GENERAL  COURSE  OF  THE  MOVEMENT.  313 
II.  THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  AS  RECOGNIZED  BY  ANGLO- 
CATHOLICS  334 

III.  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  APOSTOLICAL  SUCCESSION 347 

IV.  SACRAMENTAL  TEACHING 356 

V.  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PROTESTANTISM  AND  ROMANISM  RE- 
SPECTIVELY     373 

VI.  ESTIMATE  OF  THE  ANGLO-CATHOLIC  MOVEMENT 392 

CHAPTER  III 
LESS  IMPORTANT  DEVELOPMENTS  OF  SACERDOTALISM 

I.  THE  STANDPOINT  OF  THE  MORE  RADICAL  NEO-LUTHERANS.  430 

II.  IRVINGITE  THEORIES 432 

III.  MORMON  THEORIES 437 

CONCLUSION 447 


PREFACE 

As  will  appear  from  a  glance  at  the  subject-matter  of 
the  volume,  we  have  understood  the  essence  of  sacerdo- 
talism to  lie  in  a  profound  emphasis  on  priestly  authority 
and  on  sacramental  efficacy.  The  name  is  indicative  of 
the  system  which  exalts  the  office  of  the  priestly  hier- 
archy and  the  virtue  of  the  rites  supposed  to  depend  for 
their  valid  administration  upon  that  hierarchy. 

Whatever  may  be  the  value  of  this  treatise,  the  vast 
importance  of  the  theme  with  which  it  deals  cannot  be 
questioned.  Over  against  the  unwonted  progress  of  free 
thought  and  scientific  investigation  in  the  last  century, 
movements  toward  radical  jorms_^of  sacerdotalism  have 
been  inaugurated,  pushed  forward  with  desperate  energy, 
and  crowned  with  large  measures  of  apparent  success. 
The  result  has  been  to  pass  over  to  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury the  grounds  of  antagonisms  as  fundamental  and 
far-reaching  as  have  ever  been  known  in  the  history  of 
Christianity.  So  far  as  the  lay  element  in  the  Christian 
world  is  concerned  the  sharp  antipathies  of  the  sixteenth 
century  may  have  been  very  appreciably  abated ;  but  the 
spirit,  purpose,  and  action  of  priestly  hierarchies  were 
never  surcharged  more  deeply  than  at  present  with  an 
intense  hatred  of  that  evangelical  teaching  which  empha- 
sizes the  freedom  and  responsibility  of  the  individual 
in  the  sphere  of  religious  belief  and  practice.  If  that 


viii  PREFACE 

teaching  is  to  maintain  itself  it  must  be  at  the  expense  of 
earnest  warfare.  Doubtless  the  greater  part  of  the  mil- 
itant task  lies  in  the  exposition  and  illustration  of  evan- 
gelical truth.  But  in  relation  to  thoroughly  antagonistic 
interpretations  of  Christianity  it  is  highly  important  to 
understand  both  sides.  The  champion  of  the  evangelical 
standpoint  who  responds  to  the  claims  of  sacerdotalism 
with  nothing  better  than  a  shake  of  the  head,  a  shrug  of 
the  shoulders,  or  an  expression  of  contempt,  simply 
advertises  his  own  shallowness.  His  method  is  too 
closely  akin  to  the  sacerdotal  plan  of  refuting  by  anathe- 
mas to  claim  a  grain  of  respect.  It  is  due  to  rational 
religion  that  it  should  be  defended  by  rational  means. 
As  a  consistent  friend  of  rational  religion  the  evangelical 
pastor  or  teacher  will  not  spare  the  pains  requisite  for  a 
good  understanding  of  the  sacerdotalism  with  which  he 
is  compelled  directly  or  indirectly  to  make  battle.  If  in 
seeking  that  understanding  he  derives  any  aid  from  the 
present  volume,  the  author  will  have  accomplished  his 
main  purpose. 

It  will  not  be  assumed,  of  course,  that  the  author 
designs  to  bring  a  railing  accusation  against  sacerdotal 
Churches.  A  Church  which  incorporates  sacerdotalism 
may  incorporate  along  with  it  a  large  part  of  the  real 
treasure  of  Christianity,  and  thus  be  able  to  boast  of  a 
history  adorned  by  many  examples  of  saintly  character 
and  holy  living.  With  the  utmost  cordiality  we  admit 
this  fact.  The  pith  of  our  criticism  is,  that  so  far  as  a 
Church  is  controlled  by  sacerdotalism  itTias  turned  away 
from  the  spiritual  ideaTof  Christiamty~ahd  taken  up  a 


PREFACE  ix 

role  hostile  to  the  prevalence  of  rational  religion  in  the 
jfrofjd. 

The  reader  may  notice  that  in  some  instances  we  have 
overstepped  the  limits  of  the  period  with  which  the  book 
is  more  specially  concerned,  and  have  cited  from  treatises 
written  in  the  first  years  of  the  twentieth  century.  It 
will  be  found,  however,  that  the  citations  serve,  as  a  rule, 
to  illustrate  views  which  had  become  more  or  less  repre- 
sentative of  sacerdotal  parties  in  the  preceding  century. 

Boston  University,  January,   1909. 


PART  I 
THE  ROMAN  TYPE 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  ECCLESIASTICAL  AUTHORITY 
I. — STATEMENT  AND  DEFENSE  OF  THE  PRINCIPLE 

THE  theme  of  this  chapter  is  so  closely  implicated  with 
that  of  the  following  that  it  is  somewhat  difficult  to 
observe  strictly  the  line  of  demarcation  between  them. 
Still,  if  we  take  the  nineteenth  century  in  its  entirety,  it 
must  appear  that  the  question  of  church  authority  and 
the  question  of  papal  authority  have  not  been  counted 
identical  by  the  entire  body  of  Roman  Catholic  thinkers. 
It  is  clear  also  that  in  a  purely  theoretical  view  it  is  pos- 
sible to  distinguish  between  the  provinces  of  the  two 
authorities,  and  to  make  room  for  diverse  judgments  on 
their  respective  claims.  We  find,  therefore,  a  sufficient 
warrant  for  beginning  with  the  subject  of  ecclesiastical 
authority,  even  though  in  its  treatment  we  may  not  be 
able  to  avoid  altogether  such  matters  as  might  properly 
be  discussed  under  the  category  of  papal  absolutism. 

On  the  former  theme  there  is  not  much  to  record  in 
the  line  of  strictly  new  developments.  Throughout  the 
preceding  century  the  traditional  theory  as  to  the  nature 
TijTJjir^in^f  rhurrh  nnthority,  the  theory  bequeathed 
by  the  middle  ages,  was  taken  in  its  general  outline  as 
indubitably  true.  What  we  have  to  do,  therefore,  in  the 
present  chapter,  is  to  observe  the  terms  in  which  the 
theory  has  been  expressed,  and  the  applications  which 
have  been  made  of  it  to  questions  of  large  practical 
import. 

3 


\4* 


THE  ROMAN  TYPE 


"That  the  Church  is  the  infallible  organofjtruth  is  the 
fundamental  dogma  of  the  Catholic  religion."  The 
author  of  this  declaration,  J.  H.  Newman,1  has  not  been 
rated  in  the  official  circles  of  Romanism  as  a  model  of 
orthodoxy;  but  in  the  given  statement  he  used  language 
which  could  not  have  been  improved  upon  by  the  most 
thoroughly  informed  and  faithful  expounder  of  the 
Roman  system.  A  veritable  doctor  ecclesia  could  not 
have  framed  a  more  acceptable  proposition.  At  least  he 
would  not  care  to  amend  except  by  giving  expression  to 
the  compass  of  the  truth  in  relation  to  which  the  Church 
serves  as  the  infallible  organ. 

An  equivalent  of  Newman's  proposition  encounters 
the  reader  of  the  Roman  Catholic  literature  of  the  last 
century  at  every  turn.  He  finds  it  in  the  catechetical 
treatise.  Thus  Keenan  remarks :  "A  fundamental  prin- 
ciple of  the  Catholic  religion  is  that  the  Church  is  in- 
"fallible."2  "The  true  Church,"  says  Gaume,  "is  infalli- 
ble. It  always  has  been  so.  It  shall  always  be  so."3 
In  an  American  catechism  designed  for  youthful  pupils 
we  read:  "To  believe  the  Catholic  Church  is  to  believe 
God  himself."4 

Writers  on  canon  law  treat  the  proposition  in  question 
as  a  primary  maxim  of  the  system  which  they  are  called 
upon  to  expound.  The  Church,  as  Phillips  represents, 
is  the  one  authority  which  gives  to  Scripture  its  sanction 
and  to  tradition  its  guarantee.  To^  explain  a  single  text 
of_^cjipjtjire^contrary_tq_the  interpretation  ofthe  Church_ 

i  An  Essay  in  Aid  of  a  Grammar  of  Assent,  1870,  p.  146. 

*  Controversial  Catechism,  revised  edit.,  1896,  p.  46.     The  first  edition 
appeared  a  half  century  earlier. 

*  The  Catechism  of  Perseverance,  trans,  from  the  tenth  French  edit., 
1895,  II.  255. 

4  Catechism  of  Christian  Doctrine  for  Parochial  and  Sunday  Schools,  No. 
II,  approved  in  1874. 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  5 

is  toincur  the  guilt  of  heresy.1  Hergenrother  describes 
the  Church  as  societas  perfecta,  societas  supretna,  "the 
visible  kingdom  of  God  upon  earth,"  and  argues  that  her 
infallibility  is  a  necessary  inference  from  her  perpetuity, 
since  only  the  Church  that  is  built  on  an  indefectible  faith 

,—.••.--  ....  o  "waaHMB  w- 

can  be  secure  of  continued  existence/ 

Apologetic  treatises  rate  in  common  the  infallibility  of 
the  Church  as  the  indispensable  basis  of  Christian  confi- 
dence. "There  must  be  an  infallible  authority,"  says 
Schanz,  "if  there  is  to  be  any  revelation  or  any  faith  in 
the  world.  Anything  short  of  this  would  fail  in  the  task 
which  Christ  imposed  on  his  Church.  .  .  .  Infallibility 
is  not  an  arrogant  assumption,  but  a  matter  of  life  and 
death  for  the  Church."3  In  like  manner  Gibbons  affirms, 
"Faith  and  infallibility  must  go  hand  in  hand.  The  one 
cannot  exist  without  the  other.  There  can  be  no  faith 
in  the  hearer  unless  there  is  an  unerring  authority  in  the 
speaker.  .  .  .  The  Church  is  not  susceptible  of  being 
reformed  in  her  doctrines.  The  Church  is  the  work  of 
the  incarnate  God.  Like  all  God's  works,  it  is  perfect."4 
"To^be  infallible."  urges  Devivier,  "gemrajlly_speak«ig, 
is_to_pt>ssess  the  privilege,  of  never  deceiving  or  being 
deceived^ this  privilege_hi  j^gard-lQ  the.J^hurch  means 
that  she  can  neither  alter  the  doctrine  of  Jesus  Christ, 
nor  misunderstand  the  true  meaning  of  what  our  divine 
Saviour  taught,  commanded,  or  prohibited.  No  doubtN 
God  only  is  infallible  in  nature,  but  he  may  by  a  special  j 

•««niifta<     WMM  .*>^MP^'*?*'  J         J 

providence    protect    those    from    error    whom    he    has  / 
charged  to  teach  in  his  name,  so  that  their  teaching  shall/ 

1  Kirchenrecht,  1845-1890,  II.  306,  441. 

2  Lehrbuch  des  Katholischen  Karchenrechts,  second  edit.,  1905,  pp.  19—25. 

3  A  Christian  Apology,  trans,  by  Glancey  and  Schobel,  1896,  III.  216,  227. 

4  The  Faith  of  Our  Fathers,  1877,  pp.  89,  91. 


6  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

never  deviate  in  anything  from  the  truth.  Now  God  has 
Vgranted  this  infallibility  to  his  Church."1  "The  teaching 
authority  of  the  Church,"  contends  Russo,  "was  insti- 
tuted by  God  himself ;  it  is  supported  by  him ;  it  is  like- 
wise imposed  upon  us  by  him  under  pain  of  eternal  dam- 
nation. Therefore  if  we  err  in  admitting  the  teaching  of 
the  Church,  our  error  is  to  be  attributed  to  God  himself."2 
By  no  class  of  Roman  Catholic  writers  is  larger  ac- 
count made  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Church  than  by  the 
compilers  of  dogmatic  systems.  The  proper  idea  of 
revelation,  Scheeben  contends,  accounts  it  not  merely  a 
means  of  consolation  and  edification  for  the  individual, 
but  a  sovereign  law  of  God  for  the  faith,  thought,  and 
action  of  all  men  whether  taken  collectively  or  individu- 
ally, a  means  of  uniting  them  into  one  Church  of  truth 
and  holiness.  This  revelation  must  be  promulgated  and 
interpreted  by  an  authoritative  medium,  by  one  able  truly 
to  represent  the  absent  Christ,  and  therefore  infallible. 
Such  a  medium  has  been  provided  in  the  Catholic  hier- 
archy. Through  that  hierarchy  the  whole  apostolic 
deposit,  the  written  and  the  oral  alike,  has  been  pre- 
served in  its  true  and  full  sense  and  in  its  original  purity. 
This  is  the  Catholic  claim,  and  if  it  be  not  true,  then  the 
hierarchy  must  be  written  down  as  a  diabolical  rather 
than  a  divine  institution,  and  its  cathedra  must  be  termed 
not  a  cathedra  vcritatis,  but  a  cathedra  pestilential  The 
contemporary  dogmatist,  Heinrich,  maintains  that 
Christ  established  a  magisterium  ecclesiasticum,  which 
alone  gives  assurance  of  the  authenticity,  integrity,  and 


I. 


1  Christian  Apologetics,  p.  399. 

*  The  True  Religion  and  its  Dogmas,  1886,  pp.  114,  115. 

1  Handbuch  der  Katholischen  Uogmatik.  1873-1903,  §§  7,  8,  9,  15,  22, 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  7 

inspiration  of  Scripture,  and  which  within  its  limits  is 
infallible.  Nor  are  these  limits  of  narrow  compass.  T 
infallibility  of  the  Church  extends  not  only  to  all  truths 
and  facts  in  the  deposit  of  faith,  "but  also  to  all  truths 
and  facts  which  are  necessary  for  the  preservation,  the 
explanation,  and  the  promulgation  of  the  deposit  of  J 
faith."  It  implies  full  competency  to  distinguish  between^ 
true  and  false  tradition.  It  implies  no  less  a  prerogativey 
to  silence  the  objections  of  science  in  so  far  as  they 
impinge  against  any  part  of  the  faith  of  the  Church. 
"Reason  itself  understands  that  natural  science  can  err, 
not,  however,  divine  revelation  and  the  infallible  teach- 
ing authority."  Accordingly,  Giinther  was  in  error  when 
he  assumed  that  the  decisions  of  the  Church  have  given 
not  the  absolutely  correct  sense  of  dogmas,  but  only  a 
sense  relatively  correct  in  its  adaptation  to  the  times 
when  the  decisions  were  made ;  and  that  it  is  the  function 
of  modern  scientific  study  to  work  out  the  correct  sense. 
Frohschammer  also  went  astray  in  teaching  that  dogmas 
must  undergo  modification  to  meet  the  demands  of  ad- 
vancing science.  As  the  Vatican  decree  declares,  "The 
doctrine  of  faith  which  God  has  revealed  has  not  been 
proposed,  like  a  philosophical  invention,  to  be  perfected 
by  human  ingenuity,  but  has  been  delivered  as  a  divine 
deposit  to  the  spouse  of  Christ,  to  be  faithfully  kept  and 
infallibly  declared."1  In  due  respect  to  infallible  au- 
thority the  faithful  must  yield  an  inward  assent,  not 
only  to  defined  dogmas,  but  to  all  the  customary  teach- 
ings of  the  Church.  Even  to  lesser  censures,  or  those 
which  come  short  of  denouncing  opinions  as  heretical, 
Catholics  are  obligated  to  render  an  unreserved,  inner,  be- 

1  Const.  Dogmat.  de  Fide  Cath.  ,  cap.  iv. 


8  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

lieving  accord.1  Hurter  notices  that  the  Church  has  rather 
assumed  than  formally  declared  its  infallibility.  "Indi- 
rectly," however,  "the  Vatican  Council  has  vindicated 
this  prerogative  for  the  Church,  or  set  it  forth  as  in--* 
dubitable,  by  defining  that  the  Roman  pontiff  is  possessed 
of  that  infallibility  with  which  the  Divine  Redeemer  willed 
that  his  Church  should  be  endowed  for  defining  doctrine 
regarding  faith  and  morals."2 

It  may  perhaps  be  observed  that  most  of  the  writers 
cited  above  penned  their  convictions  in  the  last  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  This  may  be  explained  in  large 
part  by  the  fact  that  the  later  decades  of  the  century  were 
much  more  fertile  in  theological  treatises  than  the  earlier. 
Certainly  it  does  not  signify  that  belief  in  the  infallibility 
of  the  Church  was  not  regarded  as  part  and  parcel  of 
Roman  Catholic  orthodoxy  in  the  first  half  of  the  cen- 
tury. The  most  that  can  be  admitted  in  the  way  of  con- 
trast is  that  in  the  later  period  there  was  an  intensified 
sense  of  the  need  of  emphasizing  the  notion  of  infallible 
authority,  and  accordingly  that  notion  was  brought  to 
sharp  expression,  and  in  not  a  few  instances  was  given  a 
somewhat  broader  scope  than  had  been  asserted  for  it  by 
theologians  a  generation  or  two  back.  As  compared  with 
Scheeben  and  Heinrich,  Mohler  and  some  others  of  the 
earlier  theologians  may  have  used  rather  indefinite  terms 
in  relation  to  the  theory  of  ecclesiastical  infallibility ;  but 
still  they  made  it  sufficiently  evident  that  they  regarded 
infallibility  as  a  fundamental  postulate  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  system.3 

The  claim  of   infallibility  for  the  present  hierarchy 

1  Lehrbuch  der  Katholischen  Dogmatik,  1900,  pp.  40-74. 
1  Theologiae  Dogmaticae  Compendium,  eleventh  edit.,  I.  290. 
1  See  Mohler,  Symbolik,  §§  36,  38.    The  first  edition  was  issued  in  1833. 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  9 

evidently  involves  a  powerful  demand  to  assert  a  high 
technical  theory  of  biblical  authority.     The  infallibility 
jrf  the  hierarchy  cannot  well  be  accounted  a  matter  of 
direct  intuition.     It  is  exceedingly  convenient,  therefore, 
not  to  say  strictly  necessary,  to  have  some  sacred  texts/ 
to  which  appeal  can  be  made,  and  the  texts  in  order  to\ 
afford  a  perfectly  secure  basis  must  be  rated  as  infallible./ 
Thus  a  practical  demand  arises  for  a  stiff  maintenance 
of  biblical  inerrancy.    Moreover,  it  would  involve  a  very 
peculiar  form  of  self-appreciation  on  the  part  of  a  hier- 
archy to  deny  to  prophets  and  apostles  an  aloofness  from 
errofc  which  it  asserts  for  itself.     Men  with  any  sense 
of  religious  propriety  could  hardly  fail  to  shrink  from 
such  a  brazen  procedure  as  that.    Still  further,  it  requires 
very  little  acuteness  to  apprehend  that  the  granting  of 
any  freedom  to  criticism  within  the  biblical  range  would 
naturally  open  the  door  to  a  perilous  license  for  criticism 
in  the  ecclesiastical  range.     It  is  no  cause  for  surprise}*, 
therefore,  that  Roman  Catholic  authority  has  been  funda-  I 
mentally  opposed  to  making  any  concession  to  the  de-  1 
mands  of  modern  biblical  criticism  which  might  imply 
the  possibility  of  errors  in  the  Scriptures,  at  least  of  any  / 
not  chargeable  to  a  faulty  transcription.     Perrone  writV 
ing  near  the  middle  of  the  century,  while  he  does  not 
assume  that  the  sacred  writers  received  all  their  matter 
by  dictation  proper,  asserts  for  them  a  measure  of  divine 
influence  which  rendered  their  compositions  entirely  free 
from   error — immune 's  a   quavis  vel  levi  erroris  labe.1 
Referring  to  the  list  of  books  accepted  by  the  Council  of 
Trent,  the  Vatican  Council  (1869-70)  declared:   "These 
the  Church  holds  to  be  sacred  and  canonical  not  because, 

1  Praelect.  Theol.,  Pars,  ii,  sect,  i,  De  Sacra  Scriptura,  cap.  ii. 


io  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

having  been  carefully  composed  by  mere  human  industry, 
they  were  afterward  approved  by  her  authority,  nor  merely 
because  they  contain  revelation,  with  no  admixture  of 
error,  but  because,  having  been  written  by  the  inspiration 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  they  have  God  for  their  author,  and 
have  been  delivered  as  such  to  the  Church  herself."1 
That  this  language  is  to  be  taken  in  the  sense  of  an 
affirmation  of  biblical  inerrancy  is  clearly  established  by 
subsequent  declarations  of  popes,  Roman  congregations, 
and  theologians.  Says  Leo  XIII:  "All  the  books  in 
their  entirety  which  the  Church  receives  have  been  writ- 
ten in  all  their  parts  by  the  dictation  of  the  Holy  Spirit; 
so  far  is  it  in  truth  from  being  possible  that  any  error 
should  coexist  with  divine  inspiration,  that  such  inspira- 
tion by  itself  excludes  and  rejects  error,  and  that  neces- 
sarily, inasmuch  as  God  the  supreme  Truth  cannot  be 
the  author  of  any  error.  .  .  .  That  the  Holy  Spirit 
appropriated  men  as  instruments  makes  no  difference, 
as  if,  forsooth,  something  could  proceed,  not  from  the 
primary  author,  but  from  the  inspired  writers.  For  the 
Holy  Spirit  by  a  supernatural  virtue  so  excited  and 
moved  them  to  the  task  of  writing,  and  was  so  present 
with  them  in  writing,  that  all  those  things  which  he 
might  command,  and  those  alone,  they  both  rightly  con- 
ceived in  their  minds,  and  wished  faithfully  to  write, 
and  appropriately  expressed  with  infallible  truth."2  Fol- 
lowing precisely  in  the  wake  of  his  predecessor  upon  this 
point,  Pius  X  approved  the  recent  act  of  the  Roman 
Inquisition  in  condemning  this  proposition :  "Divine 
inspiration  is  not  so  extended  to  the  whole  of  Sacred 


1  Const.  Dogmat.  de  Fide  Cath.,  cap.  ii. 

1  Encyclical  Providentissimus  Deus,  Nov.  18,  1893. 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  n 

Scripture  as  to  secure  each  and  every  part  of  it  from  all 
error."1  The  Congregation  of  the  Index  has  indicated, 
if  less  explicitly,  still  with  sufficient  distinctness,  its 
adherence  to  the  same  standpoint  by  placing,  in  1887, 
Lenormant's  Les  Origines  de  1'Histoire  in  the  list  of 
prohibited  writings,  and  by  retaining  the  critical  works 
of  Richard  Simon  in  the  revised  list  of  the  year  1900. 
Among  the  theologians  of  the  last  few  decades  those  who 
are  regarded  as  models  of  Roman  orthodoxy  have  given 
unambiguous  expression  to  the  notion  of  biblical  iner- 
rancy. The  dependence  of  the  sacred  writer  upon  the 
Holy  Spirit,  argues  Scheeben,  guarantees  "the  absolute 
truth  and  wisdom  of  Holy  Scripture  up  to  the  least  item 
(bis  ins  kleinste)."2  "The  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and 
the  New  Testament,"  writes  Heinrich,  "are  not  sacred 
and  divine  writings  merely  because  through  the  spe- 
cial assistance  of  God  they  are  free  from  error,  but 
because  they  were  written  by  that  aid  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  which  is  called  inspiration,  in  virtue  of  which 
God  himself  is  the  author  not  only  of  the  truths  con- 
tained in  Holy  Writ,  but  also  of  their  expression  in 
writing,  although  by  the  mediation  and  service  of  the 
sacred  writers."3  In  a  somewhat  full  discussion  of  the 
subject  Billot  makes  these  very  emphatic  statements: 
"The  sacred  books  are  in  their  entirety  from  God,  and 
in  their  entirety  from  man,  just  as  a  work  of  art  is 
wholly  from  the  instrument,  and  wholly  from  the  artificer. 
.  .  .  No  prudent  person  will  deny  that  the  absolute 
inerrancy  of  Sacred  Scripture  is  a  most  firm  dogma  of 
the  Catholic  religion.  For  even  if  in  this  matter  no 

1  Sacrae  Romanae  et  Universalis  Inquisitionis  Decretum,  July  3,  1907. 
a Handbuch  der  Katholischen  Dogmatik,  I.  in,  112. 
1  Lehrbuch  der  Katholischen  Dogmatik,  pp.  53,  54. 


\: 


12  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

solemn  and  express  definition  of  any  council  or  pontiff 
can  be  adduced,  because  in  past  times  the  necessity  did 
not  arise  for  a  definition  of  this  kind,  still  the  universal 
and  perpetual  declaration  of  the  Church  is  sufficiently 
clear,  and  to  this  the  sense  implanted  in  all  the  faithful 
altogether  responds.  .  .  .  All  who  admit  errors  in  the 
Scriptures  are  marked  with  the  mark  of  heresy."1  Like 
views  could  easily  be  cited  from  other  writers.2  How 
unequivocal  a  place  the  doctrine  of  biblical  inerrancy  holds 
in  Romish  dogmatics  may  be  seen  in  the  care  taken  to 
render  formal  respect  to  that  doctrine  even  by  such 
Roman  Catholic  scholars  as  have  been  most  inclined  to 
affiliate  with  the  newer  criticism*  This  point  finds  illus- 
tration in  Lagrange,3  not  to  mention  the  more  adven- 
turous writer,  the  Abbe  Loisy.4  In  short,  a  contributor 
to  the  Civilta  Cattolica  seems  to  have  spoken  with  very 
good  warrant  when  he  said,  "There  is  no  Catholic  dogma 
more  solidly  established  than  the  infallibility  of  the 
Scriptures."5 

It  is  plain,  therefore,  that  the  assumption  of  infalli- 
bility, if  in  any  wise  it  is  to  be  rationally  grounded,  in- 
volves the  task  of  proving  the  inerrancy  of  a  given  list 
of  books,  as  well  as  the  inerrant  agency  of  the  Church 
in  all  solemn  determinations  of  questions  of  faith  and 
morals.  What  have  Roman  apologists  and  dogmatists 
done  toward  the  accomplishment  of  this  task  ? 

We  are  not  able  to  discover  that  they  have  done  any- 
thing better  than  to  register  easy-going  assumptions. 


1  De  Inspiratione  Sacrse  Scripturae,  second  edit.,  pp.  63,  in,  112. 

*  See  Hunter,  Outlines  of  Dogmatic  Theology,  I.  197—199;  Procter,  The 
Catholic  Creed,  pp.  31-35;  Coppens,  A  Systematic  Study  of  the  Catholic 
Religion,  p.  49. 

*  Revue  Biblique,  Jan.,  1898.  «  Etudes  Bibliques,  pp.  18,  19,  56. 
5  La  Questions  Biblica  nelT  Exegesi,  i8th  series,  vol.  vii. 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  13 

They  assume  that  there  is  no  difficulty  on  God's  side  in 
making  intellectually  limited  and  morally  imperfect  men 
infallible  organs  of  truth;  that  there  can  be  no  suitable 
basis  of  doctrinal  confidence  apart  from  recourse  to  such 
organs;  and  that  consequently  such  organs  are  to  be 
recognized  both  in  those  who  gave  the  original  deposit 
of  faith  and  in  those  who  are  intrusted  with  the  office 
of  identifying  and  interpreting  that  deposit.  Of  the 
demands  of  a  reasonable  psychology  they  take  next  to 
no  account,  and  treat  with  practical  disdain  the  prosaic 
task  of  making  a  scientific  induction  from  the  total  con- 
tents of  the  biblical  books  and  of  ecclesiastical  history. 
Gaume,  though  rated  by  some  Roman  Catholics  as  a 
rather  shallow  and  extravagant  writer,  speaks  here  for 
the  whole  tribe  of  infallibilists.  "Nothing  is  easier/'  he 
says,  "than  to  prove  that  the  true  Church  is  infallible, 
and  ought  to  be  so.  Four  questions  only!  Was  our 
Lord  infallible?  No  one  doubts  it.  Could  he  communi- 
cate his  infallibility  to  those  whom  he  sent  to  teach  man- 
kind ?  No  one  doubts  it ;  for,  being  God,  he  could  do  all 
things.  Did  he  communicate  his  infallibility  to  his  apos- 
tles and  their  successors?  Yes;  for  he  said  to  them, 
'Go  teach.  I  will  be  with  you  all  days,  even  to  the  end 
of  the  ages.'  Should  he  communicate  his  infallibility  to 
his  apostles  and  their  successors?  Yes,  he  should; 
otherwise  we  should  have  no  means  of  knowing  with 
certainty  the  true  religion.  Yet  God  wishes  that  we 
should  know  with  certainty  the  true  religion,  since  he 
wishes  that,  under  pain  of  everlasting  damnation,  we 
should  practice  it,  and  to  be  ready  to  die  rather  than 
call  in  question  any  of  the  truths  which  it  teaches/'1 

i Catechism  of  Perseverance,  II.  354,  255. 


I4  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

In  addition  to  the  scriptural  words  cited  above  in  favor 
of  the  infallibility  of  the  Church  the  text  is  appealed  to 
which  declares  that  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail 
against  the  Church,  also  that  which  emphasizes  the  obli- 
gation of  men  to  hear  the  Church,  or  warns  them  that 
in  showing  despite  to  the  messengers  of  Christ  they  will 
commit  the  sin  of  showing  despite  to  Christ  himself.1 

It  evidently  gives  rise  to  an  appearance  of  a  vicious 
circle  in  reasoning  when  the  apologist  makes  the  authority 
of  Scripture  dependent  upon  the  infallible  Church,  and 
then  turns  around  and  supports  the  infallibility  of  the 
Church  on  scriptural  texts.  Occasionally  a  Romish 
writer  has  taken  cognizance  of  this  appearance.  In  order 
to  obviate  it,  the  plea  is  made  that  over  against  those  who 
recognize  biblical  authority  it  is  legitimate  to  proceed 
from  their  point  of  view  in  sustaining  the  infallibility  of 
the  Church.  Thus  M.  J.  Spalding  says:  "If  I  am 
arguing  with  a  brother  Christian  who  admits  the 
authority  of  the  New  Testament  and  denies  the  authority 
of  the  Church,  I  may  logically  reason  from  the  former 
to  the  latter.  If  arguing  with  an  infidel  who  denies  the 
New  Testament,  I  adopt  another  course  altogether:  I 
first  prove  to  him  the  divine  authority  of  the  Church  by 
the  self-same  arguments  by  which  a  Protestant  would 
attempt  to  prove  to  him  the  divine  origin  and  character 
of  Christianity."2  This  doubtless  is  the  best  that  can  be 
urged  in  answer  to  the  charge  of  circular  reasoning ;  but 
it  has  the  disadvantage  of  suggesting  that  as  respects 
the  ultimate  basis  of  faith  the  Protestant  is  just  about 
as  well  off  as  the  Catholic. 


1  Matt,  xviii.  17 ;  Luke  x.  16. 

1  Lectures  on  the  Evidences  of  Catholicity,  fifth  edit.,  1870,  p.  275. 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  15 

Attempts  are  sometimes  made  to  support  the  dogma 
of  ecclesiastical  infallibility  by  appeals  to  the  virtues  and 
achievements  by  which  the  Church  has  been  distin- 
guished. But  it  is  hardly  worth  while  to  make  place  for 
specimens  of  such  argumentation.  Even  if  full  credit 
should  be  given  to  the  facts  on  the  score  of  which  the 
appeals  are  brought  forward,  it  would  only  be  made  to 
appear  that  a  high  degree  of  goodness  has  pertained  to 
the  Church;  and  the  proving  of  that  much  would  not 
bring  us  in  sight  of  the  proof  of  infallibility.  False 
alternatives  are  made  when  it  is  urged  that  the  Church, 
in  case  its  claim  to  infallibility  is  unfounded,  could  not 
be  the  seat  of  any  notable  good.  A  comprehensive  and 
many-sided  institution  may  bear  not  a  little  of  good  fruit 
in  spite  of  the  extravagant  claims  made  by  its  official 
representatives. 

II. — THE  BEARING  OF  THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  ECCLESIAS- 
TICAL AUTHORITY  ON  THE  RELATION  BETWEEN 
CHURCH  AND  STATE 

An  energetic  inculcation  of  the  infallible  authority  oi\ 
the  Church  prepares  a  logical  basis  for  a  stalwart  asser-     J 
tion  of  the  rightful  preeminence  of  the  Church  as  ay 
governing  power  in  the  world.     Since  the  former  had 
free  course  in  Roman  Catholic  literature,  especially  in 
the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,   we  should 
expect  to  find  the  latter,  in  the  same  period,  very  much 
in  evidence.     Such  in  fact  is  the  case.     From  the  fifth\ 
decade  onward  it  is  easy  to  find  a  succession  of  strong   ; 
statements  on  the  superiority  of  the  Church  over  the  / 
State,  and  on  the  consequent  right  of  the  Church  toj 
limit  and  direct  the  action  of  the  State.     These  state- 


16  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

ments  may  have  come  from  representatives  of  the  so- 
called  Ultramontane  party;  but  they  have  something 
more  than  a  party  significance.  Everyone  who  knows 
the  history  of  the  last  century  knows  that  by  its  close 
"Ultramontanism"  and  "regnant  Catholicism"  had  be- 
come very  nearly  identical  terms.  In  any  fair  interpreta- 
tion of  the  ecclesiastical  constitution,  as  it  was  left  by  the 
Vatican  Council,  the  pope  counts  for  vastly  more  than 
the  entire  remainder  of  the  church  officiary.  Writers 
then,  who  have  spoken  agreeably  to  the  papal  conscious- 
ness have  a  special  title  to  be  rated  in  the  line  of  Roman 
orthodoxy. 

Taking  Phillips  as  our  first  witness,  we  notice  that 
the  antithesis  which  he  assumes  between  clergy  and  laity 
affords  a  very  congenial  point  of  view  for  magnifying 
the  authority  of  the  Church  as  compared  with  that  of 
the  State.  "The  clergy,"  he  says,  "is  the  sanctifying, 
the  teaching,  the  ruling  Church;  the  laity  is  the  Church 
to  be  sanctified,  to  be  taught,  to  be  ruled."1  Belonging 
thus  purely  to  the  category  of  a  subject  and  a  pupil  in 
the  Church,  the  layman  is  consistently  restricted  in  his 
civil  capacity  from  acting  contrary  to  the  direction  of 
the  Church.  He  would  take  on  in  some  sense  the  role 
of  a  teacher  should  he  attempt  to  challenge  any  mandate 
which  the  Church  lays  upon  him.  As  magistrate,  says 
our  author,  he  must  learn  the  divine  law  from  the 
Church.  In  supervising  education  he  must  conform  to 
the  judgment  of  the  Church  as  to  what  is  compatible  with 
the  interests  of  faith  and  morals.  He  is  under  obligation 
to  uphold  the  Church  in  securing  the  execution  of  the 
laws  which  it  makes  for  its  subjects.  As  compared  with 

1  Kirchenrecht,  I.  283. 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  17 

the  ecclesiastical  power  he  stands  upon  a  subordinate 
plane.  "A  glance  at  the  difference  between  spiritual  and 
worldly  sovereignty  shows  the  impossibility  of  coor- 
dination." So  far  superior  is  the  one  to  the  other  that 
in  the  last  resort  the  Church  can  depose  the  temporal 
ruler.  It  has  assumed,  in  fact,  to  exercise  this  right,  and 
therefore  must  be  credited  with  it  or  be  charged  with 
usurpation.1 

In  an  elaborate  essay  by  E.  S.  Purcell,  which  was  evi- 
dently written  in  view  of  the  treatise  of  Phillips,  we  have 
the  like  theories  asserted  with  notable  absence  of  reserve. 
As  the  essay  is  contained  in  a  book2  which  was  edited  by 
Archbishop  Manning,  it  may  be  presumed  that  he  ap- 
proved it  at  least  for  substance  of  doctrine.  The  follow- 
ing are  some  of  its  statements:  "Every  act  which 
emanates  from  the  civil  power  must  be  in  exact  con- 
formity with  the  laws  of  the  Church;  any  infringement 
of  these  laws  is  a  violation  of  the  essential  principle  on 
which  all  authority  rests — conformity  with  the  divine 
will.  But  what  is  conformable  to  the  divine  will  the 
Church  alone  can  declare;  and  to  all  such  declarations 
the  civil  power  must  render  unhesitating  obedience. 
.  .  .  The  State  is  not  competent  to  determine  by  its 
own  authority  its  proper  range  and  sphere;  these  are 
shaped  out  for  it  by  the  action  of  the  Church.  ...  If 
we  throw  ourselves  into  the  life  and  strife  of  those 
times  when  the  power  of  the  popes  was  at  its  highest,  we 
are  utterly  unable  to  reconcile  with  such  a  state  of  things 
the  .theory  which  some  modern  Catholic  apologists,  with 
Gosselin  at  their  head,  have  set  up  to  account  for  the 


1  Kirchenrecht,  II.  §§  110-116,  pp.  sjoff. 
*  Essays  on  Religion  and  Literature,  1867. 


i8  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

existence  of  the  deposing  power  of  the  popes.  I  cannot 
for  an  instant  believe  that  this  power,  so  tremendous  in 
its  character,  was  conferred  on  the  papacy  by  the  Chris- 
tian kings  and  people,  or  that  it  was  the  mere  result  of 
the  peculiar  condition  and  circumstances  of  Europe.  The 
popes  themselves  did  not  speak  of  their  power  to  depose 
princes  as  of  a  right  derived  from  the  will  of  kings  and 
princes.  They  had  a  far  higher  idea  of  the  source  of  this 
authority.  In  issuing  decrees  which  made  the  mightiest 
monarchs  tremble  they  never  regarded  themselves  as 
delegates  only  of  a  political  society.  They  were  not 
mere  umpires  before  whom  the  nations  had  agreed  to 
come  for  judgment,  but  judges  on  a  tribunal  set  up 
by  no  earthly  arm.  They  were  not  the  vicegerents  of 
Christendom  but  of  Christ.  .  .  .  Writers  have  argued 
and  nations  have  declared  that  popes  have  no  power  to 
depose  kings,  but  no  pope  that  I  am  aware  of  has  accepted 
such  arguments  or  indorsed  such  declarations,  and  there- 
fore I  will  follow  what  the  popes  have  said  and  done 
rather  than  the  opinions  of  Gallican  legists  and  the  decla- 
rations of  heretical  parliaments.  .  .  .  The  child,  says 
the  divine  law,  belongs  to  the  parent,  not  to  the  State, 
and  the  Christian  parent  is  bound  to  educate  the  child 
according  to  the  direction  of  the  Church.  ...  In  fine, 
in  all  civil  matters  affecting  spiritual  interests,  according 
to  the  principle  already  stated,  the  Church  is  predomi- 
nant." Its  authority,  as  Purcell  goes  on  to  state,  is  ade- 
quate to  annul  the  election  or  succession  of  an  heretical 
prince,  and  also  to  depose  from  the  throne  the  prince 
who  falls  into  heresy.1 

Referring  to  the  fact  that  in  the  latter  part  of  the 

1  See  in  particular,  pages  413-418,  458,  459. 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  19 

eighteenth  century  the  faculties  of  divinity  in  the  univer- 
sities of  Paris,  Louvain,  Douai,  Salamanca,  Alcala,  and 
Valladolid,  in  answer  to  questions  propounded  by 
William  Pitt,  denied  the  existence  of  the  deposing  power 
in  the  Church,  Purcell  contends  that  these  faculties  repre- 
sented an  era  particularly  characterized  by  a  slump  into 
Gallicanism,  that  they  were  little  better  than  puppets  of 
the  contemporary  rulers,  and  that  their  judgment  is 
totally  lacking  in  authority.  "The  pope,  who  is  the 
alpha  and  omega  of  the  sovereign  power  of  the  Church, 
has  alone  to  be  consulted,  has  alone  to  decide  as  to  the 
rights  of  the  papacy." 

The  theory  embodied  in  the  above  statement  on  the 
measure  of  ecclesiastical  authority  comes  out  very  dis- 
tinctly in  the  declarations  of  Liberatore.     True  CatholP\ 
cism,  he  says,  cannot  accept  either  the  supremacy  of  the  \ 
State,  the  full  independence  of  the  State,  or  the  separa-    | 
tion  of  the  State  from  the  Church.    "It  sustains  the  neces-  / 
sity  of  harmony  between  the  State  and  the  Church,  but 
the  necessity  of  a  harmony  which  proceeds   from  the 
subordination  of  the  one  to  the  other.    Apart  from  such 
subordination  that  word  would  be  void  of  sense,  since 
concord  and  peace  are  only  the  permanence  of  order,  and 
order  cannot  be  had  unless  things  are  disposed  according 
to  their  mutual  relations."1    In  confirmation  of  this  posi- 
tion Liberatore  cites  the  bull  Unam  Sanctam  of  Boniface 
VIII,   in   which  the   idea  that   the   State   possesses   an 
authority  in  any  wise  coordinate  with  that  of  the  Church 
is   repudiated   as  no   better   than   Manichaean   dualism. 
This  bull,  he  maintains,  confirmed  as  it  has  been  by  Leo 
X  and  by  the  Fifth  Lateran  Council,  is  of  decisive  dog- 

*  La  Chiesa  e  lo  Stato,  1872,  p.  21. 


20  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

matic  weight.  Every  sincere  Catholic  must  accept  its 
teaching.  There  is  no  gainsaying  these  words  of  Boni- 
face VIII:  Unum  corpus,  unum  caput.  Oportet  igitur 
gladium  esse  sub  gladio,  et  tcmporalem  auctoritatem 
spiritual}  subiici  potestati.1  "The  State  has  no  indirect 
power  over  the  Church,  but,  on  the  contrary,  the  Church 
has  indirect  power  over  the  State.  And  so  it  is  able  to 
annul  the  civil  laws  or  the  sentences  of  the  external 
forum,  when  they  are  opposed  to  the  spiritual  good ;  and 
it  is  able  to  check  the  abuse  of  the  executive  power  and 
of  arms,  or  indeed  to  prescribe  their  use,  when  the  de- 
fense of  the  Christian  religion  makes  demand  therefor. 
The  tribunal  of  the  Church  is  higher  than  that  of  the 
civil  power.  Now,  the  superior  is  able  to  revise  the 
causes  of  the  inferior ;  but  the  inferior  is  in  no  wise  able 
to  revise  the  causes  of  the  superior."2  "According  to 
Catholic  doctrine,  the  civil  power  bears  comparison  to 
the  spiritual  as  the  body  to  the  soul."3 

Molitor  seems  to  agree  with  Liberatore  in  his  estimate 
of  the  bull  Unum  Sanctam.  He  speaks  of  it  as  affording 
the  model  exposition  of  the  proper  relation  between 
Church  and  State,  though  admitting  that  in  dealing  with 
the  unchristianized  society  of  the  modern  world  it  may 
not  be  practicable  to  carry  out  the  scheme  which  it  dic- 
tates.4 In  accord  with  Purcell  he  represents  that  the 
basis  of  the  deposing  power,  as  understood  by  the  popes, 
was  not  simply  the  general  custom  or  consent  of  mediaeval 
Europe,  but  a  constitutional  prerogative,  a  right  inherent 
in  the  pope  as  the  supreme  official  of  the  Church.  Illus- 
trating from  the  act  of  Pius  V  in  declaring  Queen  Eliza- 

1  La  Chiesa  e  lo  State.  1872,  pp.  23-25.  *  Ibid.  p.  46. 

3  Ibid.  pp.  364,  265.  *  Burning  Questions,  1876,  pp.  134-138. 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  21 

beth  deposed,  he  says :  "In  the  bull  Regnans  in  coelis  he 
appeals,  as  the  authority  of  his  right  to  pronounce  judicial 
sentence,  not  to  any  power  intrusted  to  him  by  men,  nor 
to  any  custom  which  had  become  law  by  being  exercised 
for  centuries,  but  he  expressly  and  unequivocally  declares 
that  he  proceeds  against  the  Queen  of  England  by  virtue 
of  the  authority  delivered  to  him  by  Christ  himself  in  the 
person  of  Peter.  And  the  predecessors  of  Pius  V  cer- 
tainly acted  in  similar  case  in  the  same  spirit,  and  with 
the  same  consciousness  of  justice."1  The  above  senti- 
ments are  brought  to  expression  through  the  medium  of 
a  dialogue,  but  there  is  no  occasion  to  doubt  that  they 
reflect  the  real  standpoint  of  the  author. 

The  Church  as  a  perfect  society,  argues  Costa-Rossetti, 
cannot  be  subject,  even  indirectly,  to  the  civil  society. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  civil  society  is  properly  subor- 
dinate to  the  Church  in  spiritual  and  mixed  matters,  and 
indirectly  also  in  things  purely  temporal.  "Those  are 
called  mixed  matters  which  are  at  once  spiritual  and 
temporal,  or  those  which  are  in  such  sense  spiritual  that 
they  have  intimate  connection  with  temporal  things,  for 
example,  material  goods  possessed  by  the  Church,  the 
sacrament  of  matrimony  and  its  temporal  effects,  ecclesi- 
astical benefices,  and  the  constitution  governing  bishops 
and  the  incumbents  of  parishes,  etc.  Now,  in  these  the 
civil  society  is  subordinate  to  the  authority  of  the  Church ; 
for  the  Church  is  an  independent  or  perfect  society  as 
respects  all  things  which  are  related  to  the  attainment 
of  its  proper  end;  but  these  mixed  things  are  such."2 
The  writer  adds  that  the  settlement  of  any  disputes  which 


1  Burning  Questions,  1876,  pp.  126,  127. 

1  Philosophia  Moralis,  editio  altera,  1886,  pp.  723-725 


22  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

may  arise  over  these  mixed  matters  between  Christian 
princes  and  ecclesiastics  falls  within  the  competency  of 
the  supreme  pontiff,  though  in  deference  to  actual  condi- 
tions the  pontiff  in  recent  times  has  customarily  resorted 
to  the  use  of  concordats.1 

"The  publication,"  says  Philipp  Hergenrother,  "in- 
terpretation, and  preservation  of  the  Christian  moral  law 
pertains  to  the  Church,  and  in  this  sphere  the  State  is 
obligated  to  give  heed  to  her  voice.  ...  In  case  of 
conflict  between  ecclesiastical  and  civil  law  the  preference 
is  intrinsically  due  to  the  ecclesiastical;  for  the  aim  of 
the  Church  is  the  higher."2  On  the  subject  of  the  deposing 
power  Hergenrother  takes  moderate  ground.  While  he 
does  not  deny  that  such  a  power  is  based  in  the  official 
authority  of  the  pope,  he  concludes  that  it  is  not  based 
in  that  alone,  but  requires  in  addition  such  a  system  of 
public  law  as  prevailed  in  the  middle  ages.3  Herein 
evidently  he  exhibits  poor  agreement  with  the  papal  in- 
terpretation as  brought  out  above  by  Purcell  and  Molitor. 

Writers  who  treat  of  the  deposing  power  very  com- 
monly acknowledge  at  least  an  obligation  of  prudence 
on  the  part  of  the  Church  not  to  attempt  to  put  it  into 
practice  under  present  conditions.  So,  for  instance, 
S.  B.  Smith.  For  the  rest,  this  writer  asserts  in  emphatic 
terms  the  preeminence  of  the  Church  over  the  State.  "In 
whatsoever  things,"  he  says,  "whether  essentially  or  by 
accident,  the  spiritual  end — that  is,  the  end  of  the 
Church — is  necessarily  involved,  in  those  things,  though 
they  be  temporal,  the  Church  may  by  right  exert  its 
power  and  the  civil  State  ought  to  yield.  .  .  .  The 

1  Philosophia  Moralis,  editio  altera,  1886,  p.  726. 

*  Lehrbuch  des  Katholischen  Kirchenrechts,  second  edit.,  pp.  64,  68. 

'  Ibid.,  p.  72. 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  23 

Church  alone  can  fix  the  limits  of  its  jurisdiction;  and 
if  the  Church  can  fix  the  limits  of  its  own  jurisdiction, 
it  can  fix  the  limit  of  all  other  jurisdiction — at  least  so 
as  to  warn  off  its  own  domain.  .  .  .  It  is  unmeaning 
to  say  that  princes  have  no  superior  but  the  law  of  God ; 
for  a  law  is  no  superior  without  an  authority  to  judge 
and  apply  it."1 

The  theoretical  primacy  of  the  Church  over  the  State 
may  be  regarded  as  logically  affecting  the  nature  of  a 
concordat  between  the  two.  According  to  one  view  the 
concordat  has  the  character  of  a  bilateral  contract;  pope 
and  prince  are  equally  bound  by  it.  Another  view,  in  the 
interest  of  the  subordination  of  the  civil  to  the  spiritual 
power,  denies  to  the  concordat  a  bilateral  character.  The 
latter  view  is  maintained  by  Liberatore.  As  he  conceives, 
the  position  of  the  pope  in  entering  into  this  class  of 
engagements  is  analogous  to  that  of  the  Divine  Author 
of  Old  and  of  New  Testament  promises.  "Concordats 
are  pontifical  privileges  and  concessions  (privilegi  e 
indulti  pontificii)  under  the  form  of  contract."  Too 
much  account  is  not  to  be  made  of  the  mere  form.  In 
essence  the  concordat  is,  on  the  side  of  the  pope,  a  privi- 
lege conceded  to  a  particular  party,  and  as  such  can  be 
recalled  or  modified  by  him  whenever  the  good  of  the 
Church  requires.  The  acknowledgment  that  this  right 
of  recall  or  modification  resides  in  the  pope  by  no  means 
involves  an  equivalent  right  in  the  temporal  prince. 
"Not  because  the  legislator,  seeking  the  good  of  the 
society  which  he  governs,  abrogates  a  part  of  the  law, 
has  the  subject  the  right  to  reckon  himself  released  from 
the  observance  of  the  part  left  untouched  and  in  force. 

1  Elements  of  Ecclesiastical  Law,  seventh  edit.,  1889,  I.  254,  355. 


24  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

Now,  the  concordat  has  the  character  of  a  private  law  in 
relation  to  a  given  kingdom ;  and  the  prince  in  stipulating 
it  intervenes  in  the  quality  of  a  representative  of  the 
people  which  receives  it,  and  therefore  in  the  quality  of  a 
subject."1  The  like  view  is  sustained  by  Palmieri  and 
Tarquini.  The  former  remarks  on  the  nature  of  con- 
cordats :  "By  far  the  more  common  opinion  among 
Italian  theologians  is,  that  these  conventions  are  not  true 
bilateral  contracts,  and  that  they  do  not  bind  the  Roman 
pontiff  to  the  other  party  by  the  proper  obligation  of  a 
contract,  through  which  the  exercise  of  his  authority  con- 
trary to  the  things  which  are  agreed  upon  is  impeded  and 
nullified  beyond  the  consent  of  the  other  party."2  That 
this  theory  is  very  agreeable  to  the  theocratic  claims  of 
the  papacy  cannot  well  be  denied;  but  the  competing 
theory  that  the  concordat  has  the  proper  nature  of  a  con- 
tract has  large  currency  outside  of  Italy.3  In  one  relation 
Pius  IX  appears  to  have  given  the  weight  of  his  approval 
to  the  dominant  Italian  theory.  In  a  letter  to  Professor 
Moritz  von  Bonald  of  Strassburg,  June  19,  1871,  he  com- 
mended an  exposition  of  the  nature  of  concordats  con- 
tained in  a  recent  writing  of  the  professor,  which  exposi- 
tion was  comformable  to  the  Italian  standpoint.4 

Naturally  the  popes  under  modern  conditions  have  felt 
considerable  restraint  as  respects  making  open  and  ex- 
plicit publication  of  the  subordination  of  the  State  to 
ecclesiastical  authority.  To  award  the  approving  smile 
and  to  stretch  out  the  hand  of  patronage  to  those  who 

1  La  Chiesa  e  lo  Stato,  pp.  381-386. 

*  Tractatus  de  Romano  Pontifice,  p.  558. 

8  See  Dictionnaire  de  Drpit  canonique  by  Andr6  and  Condis,  article 
"Concordat";  Costa- Rossetti,  Philosophia  Moralis,  pp.  726,  727;  P.  Hergen- 
rother,  Lehrbuch  des  Katholischen  Kirchenrechts,  pp.  82,  83. 

4  Hoensbroech,  Der  Ultramontanismus,  p.  134. 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  25 

range  themselves  on  the  side  of  high  Ultramontane  max- 
ims must  seem  to  them  the  more  discreet  ways  of  promul- 
gating the  dogmas  of  ecclesiastical  supremacy  and  papal 
overlordship.  Still,  the  recent  popes  have  not  failed  to 
give  sufficiently  unambiguous  indications  of  their  posi- 
tion on  this  theme.  Pius  IX  did  so  in  1864,  when  he 
formally  condemned  the  statement  that  Roman  pontiffs 
and  ecumenical  councils  have  exceeded  the  limits  of  their 
power  and  usurped  the  rights  of  princes;  also  when,  in 
the  same  connection,  he  reprobated  the  idea  of  with- 
drawing public  education  from  ecclesiastical  control  and 
placing  it  under  civil  direction.1  Other  indications,  and 
those  of  a  very  significant  type,  were  given  by  Pius  IX 
as  to  his  theory  of  the  relation  of  Church  and  State.  In 
repeated  instances,  and  in  relation  to  various  countries, 
he  declared  items  in  civil  laws,  which  he  regarded  as 
obnoxious  to  the  interests  of  the  Church,  to  be  null  and 
void.  He  put  forth  declarations  of  this  kind  against 
acts  of  the  government  of  Piedmont,  January  22,  1855 ; 
against  Spanish  legislation,  July  26,  1855;  against 
laws  of  Sardinia,  July  27,  1855;  against  Mexican  laws, 
December  15,  1856;  against  proceedings  of  the  govern- 
ment of  New  Granada,  September  17,  1863;  against  leg- 
islative or  constitutional  provisions  of  Austria,  June  22, 
i868.2  In  the  last  instance  the  papal  deliverance  ran  as 
follows :  "In  virtue  of  our  apostolic  authority  we  reject 
and  condemn  the  aforesaid  laws,  and  everything  which  in 
them  and  other  matters  touching  upon  the  rights  of  the 
Church  has  been  enacted,  done,  or  attempted  by  the 
Austrian  government  or  by  any  subordinate  officials ;  we 

J  Syllabus  of  Errors,  Nos.  23,  47,  48. 

»  See  Gladstone,  Vaticanism,  1875 ;  Von  Schulte,  Die  Macht  der  romischen 
Papste  uber  Fursten,  Lander,  Volker  und  Individuen,  third  edit.,  1896. 


26  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

declare  in  virtue  of  our  authority  that  these  decrees  have 
been  and  will  remain  null  and  empty  of  all  force."  Sim- 
ilar terms  were  employed  by  the  pope  in  condemning  the 
Prussian  May  laws,  February  5,  1875. 

From  Leo  XIII,  who  combined  a  high  degree  of  diplo- 
matic astuteness  with  an  equal  measure  of  doctrinaire 
temper,  we  have  such  sentences  as  the  following:  "No 
one  can  serve  two  masters.  If  the  one  is  obeyed  the 
other  must  of  necessity  be  discarded.  Now,  as  to  which 
should  be  preferred,  no  one  ought  to  doubt.  Evidently 
it  is  a  crime  to  abandon  obedience  to  God  for  the  sake  of 
satisfying  men;  it  is  impious  to  break  the  laws  of  Jesus 
Christ  that  one  may  obey  magistrates,  or,  under  pretext 
of  conserving  civil  right,  to  violate  the  rights  of  the 
Church.  If  the  laws  of  a  commonwealth  are  openly  at 
variance  with  divine  right,  if  they  involve  any  injury  to 
the  Church,  or  contradict  religious  duties,  or  violate  the 
authority  of  Jesus  Christ  in  the  supreme  pontiff,  then 
truly  to  resist  is  duty,  to  obey  is  crime.  Both  that  which 
ought  to  be  believed  and  that  which  ought  to  be  done  the 
Church  by  divine  right  teaches,  and  in  the  Church  the 
supreme  pontiff.  It  belongs  to  the  pontiff  not  only  to  rule 
the  Church,  but  in  general  so  to  order  the  action  of 
Christian  citizens,  that  they  may  be  in  suitable  accord 
with  the  hope  of  obtaining  eternal  salvation."1  A  rather 
suggestive  specimen  of  his  prerogative  to  order  the  action 
of  Christian  citizens  was  given  by  the  pontiff  in  connec- 
tion with  the  instruction  to  Roman  Catholics  in  Italy  to 
refrain  from  voting  in  national  elections.  The  formula 
that  it  is  "not  expedient"  to  use  the  suffrage,  which  had 
been  given  out  at  an  earlier  date,  was  declared  at  the 

1  Encyclical  Letter,  Jan.  10,  1890. 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  27 

command  of  the  pope,  July  30,  1886,  to  mean  that  it  is 
"not  permitted" — "non  expedire  prohibitionem  im- 
portat"1 

As  has  been  intimated  by  the  language  of  one  or  an- 
other expositor  of  the  Church's  prerogatives,  her  un-  \ 
rivaled  position  involves  the  conclusion  that  she  cannot  | 
concede  to  the  State  the  principal  part  in  the  management  j 
of  education.  This  conclusion  has  been  strongly  asserted 
by  recent  popes.  Writing  in  1864  to  the  Archbishop  of 
Freiburg,  in  reprobation  of  the  plan  of  education  adopted 
by  the  civil  power,  Pius  IX  declared:  "Certainly  in 
whatever  places  and  regions  this  most  pernicious  plan 
should  be  undertaken,  or  be  carried  to  a  fulfillment,  of 
expelling  the  authority  of  the  Church  from  the  schools, 
and  the  youth  should  be  miserably  exposed  to  harm  in 
respect  of  faith,  the  Church  would  be  obliged  to  advise 
all  the  faithful,  and  to  declare  to  them,  that  such  schools, 
as  being  adverse  to  the  Catholic  Church,  cannot  be  at- 
tended with  a  good  conscience."2  Near  the  end  of  the 
same  year  the  pontiff  formally  enforced  his  point  of  view 
upon  the  Roman  Catholic  world  by  including  in  the  Syl- 
labus of  Errors  the  following  propositions:  "The  best 
theory  of  civil  society  requires  that  popular  schools  open 
to  the  children  of  all  classes,  and,  generally,  all  public 
institutes  intended  for  instruction  in  letters  and  philos- 
ophy, and  for  conducting  the  education  of  the  young, 
should  be  freed  from  all  ecclesiastical  authority,  govern- 
ment, and  interference,  and  should  be  fully  subject  to 
the  civil  and  political  power,  in  conformity  with  the 
will  of  rulers  and  the  prevalent  opinions  of  the  age. 

1  Quoted  in  Civilta  Cattolica,  Feb.  2,  1895. 

2  Cited   by  Konings,  De   Absolutione   Parentibus,    Qui   Prolem   Scholis 
Publicis  seu  Promiscuis  Instituendam  Tradunt,  Neganda  necne,  1874,  p.  13. 


28  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

This  system  of  instructing  youth,  which  consists  in  sepa- 
rating it  from  the  Catholic  faith  and  from  the  power  of 
the  Church,  and  in  teaching  exclusively,  or  at  least  pri- 
marily, the  knowledge  of  natural  things  and  the  earthly 
ends  of  social  life  alone,  may  be  approved  by  Catholics."1 
Leo  XIII  made  it  evident  that  he  was  ready  to  support 
the  standpoint  of  his  predecessor.  In  an  encyclical 
addressed  to  the  French  bishops,  January  8,  1884,  he 
stated  that  it  is  a  fixed  principle  of  the  Church  to  con- 
demn schools  which  are  not  under  ecclesiastical  direction 
— Ecclesia  semper  scholas  quas  appellant  mixtas  vel 
neutras  apcrte  damnavit.2 

In  the  admonitions  of  the  Roman  congregations  public 
schools  of  the  modern  type,  or  those  under  civil  as  op- 
posed to  ecclesiastical  direction,  have  been  declared  unfit 
to  be  patronized  by  the  faithful.  Thus  the  Congregation 
for  the  Propagation  of  the  Faith,  in  an  epistle  addressed 
to  the  bishops  under  its  jurisdiction,  April  25,  1868,  took 
pains  to  enumerate  the  reasons  in  view  of  which  public 
schools  are  generally  to  be  prohibited  to  Catholics  as 
being  positively  injurious.3  An  identical  judgment  was 
expressed  by  the  Inquisition  in  the  instruction  relative 
to  the  public  schools,  which  was  sent,  June  30,  1875,  to 
the  bishops  in  the  United  States.  After  quoting  from 
the  letter  of  Pius  IX  to  the  Archbishop  of  Freiburg  the 
fathers  of  the  Holy  Office  proceeded  to  remark :  "These 
words  inasmuch  as  they  are  based  on  the  natural  and  the 
divine  law,  enunciate  a  general  principle  which  holds 
universally  and  refers  to  all  places  where  the  most  de- 
structive system  has  been  unfortunately  introduced.  It 


1  Nos.  47,  48.  »  Cited  by  the  Third  Plenary  Council  of  Baltimore. 

•Cited  by  Konings,  De  Absolutione,  pp.  n,  12. 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  29 

is  therefore  necessary  that  the  illustrious  prelates  should, 
by  all  possible  means,  keep  the  flock  intrusted  to  their 
charge  aloof  from  the  corrupting  influence  of  the  public 
schools."1 

In  the  light  of  such  declarations  there  seems  to  be  very 
little  chance  for  a  Roman  Catholic,  who  really  purposes 
to  pay  loyal  respect  to  authority,  to  dispute  the  right 
of  the  Church  to  the  supreme  control  of  education.  In-/ 
deed,  if  we  may  trust  the  interpretation  of  a  contributor 
to  an  American  periodical,  the  chance  to  dispute  such 
right  is  beyond  all  question  excluded.  Referring  to  papal 
deliverances  on  the  subject,  he  remarks :  "Some  may  say 
that  these  utterances  of  the  Holy  See  are  not  ex  cathedra, 
that  they  are  consequently  not  infallible,  and  that  we  may 
think  what  we  please  of  them.  Such  statements  would 
be  highly  irreverent  to  the  authority  of  the  Church,  to 
say  the  least ;  but  in  the  case  before  us  we  think  that  they 
would  not  be  far  short  of  heretical.  For,  granting  that 
they  are  not  ex  cathedra  pronouncements,  they  still  par- 
take of  absolute  infallibility  from  the  universal  consent  of 
the  bishops  of  the  whole  Catholic  world,  who,  though  dis- 
persed, when  unanimously  agreeing  with  the  supreme 
head  of  the  Church  and  with  one  another  on  any  point 
of  doctrine  are  infallible  judges  of  the  faith."2  The  same 
writer  gives  expression  to  his  own  conviction  as  to  the 
logical  demands  of  legitimate  ecclesiastical  authority  in 
these  unrestrained  terms:  "The  State  that  takes  educa-\ 
tion  into  its  own  hands,  though  it  may  permit  religious  ] 
instruction,  violates  the  most  fundamental  of  the  divine/ 
rights  of  the  Church.  Whatever  view,  then,  we  may 
choose,  to  take  of  state  education,  it  is  a  most  flagrant 

1  Cited  by  James  Conway  in  the  Catholic  Review,  Oct.,  1884.  2  Ibid. 


30  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

injustice,  a  most  impious  and  sacrilegious  violation  of  the 
holiest  rights  of  God  and  man."1 

Taking  together  the  teachings  of  writers  in  highest 
repute  for  orthodoxy,  the  public  instructions  of  the  popes, 
and  the  acts  by  which  they  have  illustrated  their  concep- 
tion of  their  official  prerogatives,  we  are  perfectly  justi- 
fied in  saying  that  the  essential  content  of  the  mediaeval 
doctrine  of  the  subordination  of  civil  to  ecclesiastical 
authority  has  been  appropriated  by  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  in  the  most  recent  times.  The  corollary  which 
belongs  logically  with  the  dogma  of  the  Church's  infalli- 
bility has  been  recognized  and  promulgated.  Doubtless 
one  and  another  spokesman  for  Roman  Catholicism, 
being  under  the  pressure  of  a  special  environment,  have 
preferred  to  make  rather  limited  account  of  the  pre- 
eminence of  the  ecclesiastical  over  the  civil  power.  But 
in  doing  so  they  have  failed  to  keep  in  sympathetic  rela- 
tion with  the  central  administration.  In  the  view  of 
popes  and  Roman  congregations  Gallicanism  is  rank 
poison,  and  Gallicanism  is  chargeable  against  any  theory 
which  departs  appreciably  from  the  mediaeval  conception 
of  the  normal  relation  between  Church  and  State. 

It  is  appropriately  noticed  in  this  connection  that  in 
the  approved  Roman  Catholic  theory  the  area  over  which 
the  authority  of  the  hierarchy  by  right  extends  is  not 
limited  to  the  Roman  Catholic  membership  proper.  It 
includes  all  the  baptized,  to  whatever  Christian  commun- 
ion they  may  reckon  themselves.  "Every  baptized  per- 
son," says  Liberatore,  "is  more  a  subject  of  the  pope  than 
he  is  of  any  other  earthly  ruler."2  For  a  sober  and  repre- 
sentative statement  of  the  obligations  of  non-Catholics 

1  Catholic  Review,  Jan.,  1884.  l  La  Chiesa  e  lo  Stato,  p.  39. 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  31 

we  may  take  the  following  from  the  pen  of  Philipp  Her- 
genrother:  "The  Church  considers  all  the  baptized  as 
subject  to  her  laws.  Whoever  is  validly  baptized  is  made 
through  baptism  a  member  of  the  one  Church  of  Christ. 
Baptism  involves  obligation  to  the  fulfillment  of  the 
entire  Christian  law,  subjection  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
Church.  In  consideration  of  the  baptismal  character  all 
the  baptized  are  in  duty  bound  to  observe  in  general  the 
laws  of  the  Church.  Still,  a  distinction  is  made  here  in 
point  of  doctrine.  Formal  heretics,  namely,  those  who 
by  their  own  act  of  rebellion  have  fallen  away  from  the 
Church,  are  bound  by  all  the  church  laws  without  excep- 
tion. Other  non-Catholics  are  subject  only  to  those  laws 
which  aim  primarily  at  the  common  good  of  Christendom, 
not,  however,  to  those  which  respect  immediately  the 
sanctification  of  the  individual."1 

III. — THE  BEARING  OF  THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  ECCLESIAS- 
TICAL AUTHORITY  ON  PERSONAL  RIGHTS  AND 
LIBERTIES 

A  Church  reputed  infallible  in  all  solemn  determinaA 
tions  in  the  domains  of  faith  and  morals,  and  claiming  in  \ 
respect  of  rightful  authority  a  distinct  primacy  over  all  1 
civil  communities  of  Christians,  might  be  expected  to 
assert  a  full  measure  of  control  over  the  individual. t 
Making  its  own  authority  the  unrivaled  interest,  it  must 
be  inclined  to  watch  jealously  against  the  extension  of 
personal    rights    and   liberties   beyond    the    limits   com- 
patible with  that  interest.    As  a  matter  of  fact,  exponents 
of  Roman  Catholic  teaching  throughout  the  preceding 

i  Lehrbuch  des  Katholischen  Kirchenrechts,  p.  117.    Compare  Heinrich, 
Lehrbuch  der  Katholischen  Dogmatik,  p.  643. 


33  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

century  have  clearly  evinced  their  conviction  that,  in  the 
normal  course  of  things,  the  individual  cannot  be  per- 
mitted to  order  his  religion  according  to  his  own  choice,  / 
but  must  be  put  under  emphatic  restriction  as  respects 
freedom  of  worship,  of  speech,  and  of  press.  Doubtless 
here  and  there  a  courageous  voice  has  been  raised  in  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  for  a  large  measure  of  liberty, 
and  lay  administration  within  Roman  Catholic  domains 
has  been  in  many  instances  friendly  to  liberty.  Western 
civilization  has  moved  in  that  direction.  But  when  we 
consult  the  standpoint  of  the  hierarchy,  or  take  account 
of  the  tenets  which  may  be  regarded  as  part  and  parcel 
of  a  triumphant  Roman  orthodoxy,  we  are  compelled  to 
acknowledge  that  restriction  in  the  sense  indicated  is 
distinctly  and  emphatically  set  forth  as  a  proper  and 
necessary  requisition. 

This  is  the  ground  taken  by  the  principal  writers  cited 
in  the  preceding  section.  "Neither  Church  nor  State," 
says  Phillips,  "which  are  bound  together  upon  the  true 
basis  of  divine  law  recognizes  tolerance.  The  Church 
does  not,  because  neither  true  peace  nor  true  love  recog- 
nizes tolerance ;  the  State  does  not,  because,  in  conformity 
with  its  principle,  it  ought  to  tolerate  nothing  which 
does  not  agree  with  divine  righteousness.  .  .  .  Should 
the  Church  tolerate  one  adversary  or  sect,  it  must  tolerate 
every  one  and  therewith  make  a  surrender  of  itself.  The 
secular  magistracy,  however,  which  is  penetrated  with 
the  truth  taught  by  the  Church,  must  occupy  the  same 
standpoint.  As  little  as  that  magistracy  permits  an  inde- 
pendent society  within  its  domain,  because  this  would 
lead  to  its  own  destruction,  as  little  as  it  permits  its 
subjects  to  be  robbed  of  temporal  welfare  through  uproar 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  33 

and  civil  war,  even  so  little  should  it  permit  that,  through 
societies  which  separate  themselves  from  the  authority  of 
the  Church,  which  it  is  bound  as  a  faithful  confederate 
to  protect,  the  aforementioned  subjects  should  be  deceived 
as  respects  the  salvation  of  their  souls."1  In  these  words 
the  master  of  canon  law  sketches  what  he  regards  as 
demanded  by  the  true  ideal.  That  ideal  absolutely  ex- 
cludes tolerance  for  all  dissenting  forms  of  religion.  It 
follows,  therefore,  that  tolerance  can  claim  at  most  only 
a  relative  right,  such  as  may  be  based  upon  obligations 
to  respect  existing  treaties  and  constitutions  while  they 
remain  standing. 

In  an  apology  for  papal  policy,  Joseph  Hergenrother, 
while  discountenancing  the  subversion  of  religious  liberty 
in  countries  where  it  has  long  been  established,  contends 
for  the  obligation  of  a  Roman  Catholic  State  to  keep  the 
door  closed  against  its  intrusion.  "The  authorization," 
he  says,  "of  every  form  of  worship  is  a  grave  injustice 
in  purely  Catholic  countries  like  Spain  and  South 
America.  The  unity  of  the  nation  in  faith  is  too  great 
a  benefit  for  the  State  to  be  sacrificed  without  necessity ; 
and  where  only  one  religion  exists  the  State  has  duties 
toward  it,  and  should  protect  it  as  far  as  possible  from 
attacks  and  divisions."2 

Liberatore  approves  a  papal  characterization  of  liberty 
of  conscience,  in  which  it  is  described  not  as  man's  right, 
but  as  his  madness.3  Viewed  aside  from  considerations 
of  opportuneness  or  political  prudence,  and  judged  ac- 
cording to  its  nature,  "liberty  of  conscience  is  liberty  of 
perdition."4  "As  the  individual,  so  the  State  has  the 

1  Kirchenrecht,  II.  511-513. 

2  Catholic  Church  and  State,  Eng.  trans.,  1876,  pp.  359,  360. 
8  La  Chiesa  e  lo  Stato,  p.  49.  *  Ibid.,  p.  54. 


34  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

obligation  to  embrace  the  true  religion,  and,  having  em- 
braced it,  it  has  not  merely  the  right  but  the  duty  to 
secure  the  tranquil  possession  and  conservation  of  it 
to  its  subjects  with  the  exclusion  of  access  to  all  false 
religions;  and  that  not  by  imposing  faith,  which  is  in- 
duced by  preaching,  not  by  force,  but  by  forbidding  in 
the  external  order,  over  which  alone  it  has  power,  the 
profession  of  false  cults."1 

The  English  convert,  W.  G.  Ward,  referring  to  a 
noted  address  of  Montalembert,  blames  him  for  making 
toleration  an  ideal  of  human  right,  instead  of  simply 
a  matter  of  prudence  under  certain  conditions.  "The 
highest  ideal,"  he  says  in  substance,  "is  not  a  universal 
liberty  to  differ,  but  the  union  of  society  in  one  true 
religious  belief.  And  it  is  the  duty  of  government  to 
preserve  that  union  so  far  as  it  exists."2 

"Liberty  of  worship,"  writes  Costa-Rossetti,  "in  a 
society  in  which  unity  of  Catholic  religion  exists,  cannot 
be  conceded;  where  indeed  this  unity  is  not  possessed  it 
cannot  in  itself  be  produced  by  force,  but  liberty  of  a 
false  worship  should  be  conceded  for  the  sake  of  avoid- 
ing greater  evils.  .  .  .  Where  unity  of  the  Catholic, 
the  only  true,  religion  prevails  all  other  worships,  which 
are  consequently  false  and  prohibited  by  the  revealed 
law  founded  in  the  law  of  nature,  constitute  a  public 
scandal ;  and  public  scandals  are  to  be  sternly  prohibited 
and  punished  by  authority."8 

Philipp  Hergenrother  treats  as  indubitable  maxims 
the  following  statements :  "The  Church  rejects  the  prin- 
ciple of  free  investigation  which  makes  reason  the  judge 

1  La  Chiesa  e  lo  fitato,  p.  70. 

2  Wilfrid  Ward,  W.  G.  Ward  and  the  Catholic  Revival,  p.  168. 
8  Philosophia  Moralis,  pp.  727,  729. 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  35 

K 
over  God's  utterances  and  over  her  own  teaching  office; 

she  knows  herself  as  the  only  true  Church,  and  cannot 
recognize  Protestantism  as  another  equally  legitimate 
form  of  Christianity.  .  .  .  She  rejects  in  principle  the 
freedom  of  all  worships.  Freedom  of  worship  is  in  itself 
an  evil."1 

It  is  interesting  to  observe,  in  this  relation,  in  what 
robust  terms  an  American  writer,  bidding  plain  defiance 
to  an  uncongenial  environment,  sets  forth  the  Roman 
Catholic  platform.  Including  in  the  list  of  liberties  em- 
phasized in  modern  times  liberty  of  conscience  and  of 
worship,  liberty  of  the  press,  liberty  of  education  or  in- 
struction, and  liberty  of  association,  he  adds:  "They  are 
all  false  in  principle.  The  Catholic  religion  alone  is  true 
and  binding  upon  all  men,  and  this  religion  is  identified 
with  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  This  Church  alone, 
by  the  will  of  God,  has  the  right  to  exist  and  to  spread 
throughout  the  world,  to  demand  faith  and  obedience 
from  all  men.  Every  doctrine  opposed  to  her  teaching 
and  all  morals  contrary  to  her  moral  law  are  condemned 
without  further  proof  or  appeal.  Neither  religious  error 
nor  moral  evil,  the  two  deadly  poisons  for  the  intellect 
and  the  will,  can  ever  have  any  right  of  existence  or 
propagation.  .  .  .  Neither  the  Church  nor  the  State 
can  be  taxed  with  intolerance  and  tyranny  when  they 
seek,  as  they  did  in  the  middle  ages,  to  regulate  the  exer- 
cise of  the  human  will,  and  to  diminish  for  men  the 
facilities  for  evil,  and  thus  prevent  them  from  risking 
their  happiness  and  welfare.  Such  restrictions,  so  far 
from  being  an  act  of  violence,  are,  on  the  contrary,  a 
great  benefit  to  society,  facilitating  for  its  members  the 

1  Lehrbuch  des  Katholischen  Kirchenrechts,  pp.  115,  116. 


36  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

accomplishment  of  duty  and  rendering  neglect  or  viola- 
tion of  duty  more  difficult."1 

Besides  emphasizing  the  obligation  of  the  State  to  exer- 
cise, where  feasible,  a  coercive  function  in  favor  of  the 
sole  supremacy  of  the  Roman  Catholic  religion,  repre- 
sentative expounders  of  that  religion  claim  for  the 
Church  itself  a  vis  coactiva,  a  power  to  restrain  not 
merely  by  spiritual  penalties  but  by  temporal  as  well. 
For  example,  Bouix  claims  that  this  power  is  unquestion- 
ably a  part  of  the  ecclesiastical  prerogative.  "Omitting," 
he  remarks,  "excommunication,  suspension,  privation  of 
office  and  emoluments,  also  degradation,  we  say  that  the 
Church  has  always  used  corporal  and  temporal  punish- 
ments properly  so  called,  namely,  scourging,  imprison- 
ment, fasting,  fines,  exile,  and  the  like;  there  being  ex- 
cepted,  nevertheless,  effusion  of  blood,  that  is,  the  punish- 
ment of  mutilation  or  death."2  Bouix  notices  that  the 
contrary  view  has  been  rejected  by  popes  and  councils, 
and  in  recent  times  has  been  condemned  in  the  censure 
passed  by  Pius  IX  on  the  system  of  Nuytz.3  That  the 
Church  has  a  coactive  jurisdiction,  involving  a  com- 
petency to  visit  corporal  punishments,  is  stoutly  asserted 
by  Palmieri.4  "The  principle,"  says  Granderath,  "that 
she  possesses  the  power  of  outward  punishment,  the 
Church  naturally  cannot  surrender.  Meanwhile,  though 
she  holds  fast  her  principle,  in  applying  it  she  takes 
account  of  the  conditions  of  the  time."5  Philipp  Her- 
genrother  coincides  with  Bouix  both  as  respects  the  un- 
questionable competency  of  the  Church  to  visit  temporal 


1  Devivier,  Christian  Apologetics,  pp.  437,  440. 

1  Tractatus  de  Judiciis  Ecclesiasticis,  I.  52.  'I.  65,  66. 

4  Tractatus  de  Romano  Pontifice,  pp.  13  iff. 

5  Geschichte  des  vatikanischen  Konzils,  I.  191. 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  37 

punishments  and  the  proper  restriction  on  the  range  of 
those  punishments.  He  notices  that  De  Luca  occupies  an 
exceptional  position  in  assigning  to  the  Church  the  right 
to  visit  the  penalty  of  death.1  In  some  instances  the 
privilege  of  the  Church  to  punish  offending  ecclesiastics 
with  imprisonment  was  made  a  matter  of  express  stipu- 
lation. Such  a  provision  appears,  for  example,  in  the 
concordat  made  by  Pius  VII  with  the  Republic  of  Italy 
in  1803,  and  also  in  that  made  with  the  King  of  the  Two 
Sicilies  in  i8i8.2 

The  hierarchical  consciousness  as  to  the  grave  de- 
mand which  exists  for  curbing  the  free  expression 
of  thought  found  practical  manifestation  throughout 
the  century  in  the  censorship  exercised  by  the  Con- 
gregation of  the  Index  and  also  to  considerable  extent 
by  the  Roman  Inquisition.  Some  heart-searching,  it  is 
true,  took  place  within  the  ranks  of  the  faithful  as  to 
the  legitimacy  of  a  censorship  which  customarily  con- 
demned without  either  affording  any  opportunity  to  the 
censured  party  for  explanations  or  assigning  any  reasons 
for  adverse  judgments.  Thus  on  the  eve  of  the  Vatican 
Council  eleven  French  bishops  recommended  that  a 
milder  procedure  should  be  adopted  in  passing  judgment 
on  books.3  A  similar  recommendation  was  subscribed  by 
some  German  bishops.4  A  company  of  Catholic  laymen 
went  further.  In  an  address  to  the  Archbishop  of  Treves 
they  pointed  out  that  the  established  plan  of  censorship 
is  far  from  securing  an  impartial  dealing  with  books, 
since  under  it  the  accident  of  denunciation  must  largely 


1  Lehrbuch  des  Katholischen  Kirchenrechts,  pp.  538-541. 
»  Bullarium  Romanum,  XII.  61 ;  XVI.  6 
1  Granderath,  Geschichte  des  vatikanischen  Konzils,  I.  443. 
4  Granderath,  I.  444. 


38  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

determine  the  choice  of  the  objects  of  condemnation ;  that 
it  often  involves  great  injustice  to  eminent  authors,  who 
have  given  expression  with  good  intent  and  perhaps  inad- 
vertently to  some  error,  and  who  nevertheless  are  branded 
before  the  public  as  of  dangerous  tendency  by  being 
placed  in  a  common  catalogue  with  the  writers  of  truly 
infamous  productions ;  and  that  it  imposes  a  fear  of  being 
defamed  which  must  rest  like  a  leaden  weight  on  the 
investigations  of  Catholic  scholars.  "We  cherish,  there- 
fore," they  say  in  conclusion,  "the  wish  that  it  may  please 
the  ecumenical  council  about  to  assemble  to  abolish  the 
Index  of  Prohibited  Writings."1  Montalembert  said  that 
he  would  subscribe  to  every  line  of  this  lay  memorial.2 
Others  gave  expression  to  their  dissatisfaction  with  the 
despotic  surveillance  exercised  over  literature  through  the 
Index.  But  no  heed  was  given  to  criticism  and  protest. 
The  branding  process  went  on  unchecked.  In  the  course 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  by  the  evidence  of  the  edition 
of  the  Index  published  in  1900,  very  nearly  thirteen  hun- 
dred writings  were  specifically  censured  by  being  placed 
in  the  prohibited  list.  Nor  do  these  figures  by  any  means 
indicate  the  full  extent  of  prohibited  territory,  since  a 
great  portion  of  theological  literature,  namely,  all  that 
produced  by  non-Catholic  scholars,  is  condemned  in  the 
mass  as  unfit  for  the  inspection  of  Catholic  minds. 
There  is  reason  to  believe  that  this  overgrown  censorship 
has  been  to  a  very  considerable  degree  nugatory;  but  as 
a  token  of  hierarchical  animus  it  has  a  very  distinct  sig- 
nificance. It  publishes  in  large  characters  the  intrinsic 
bent  to  intellectual  despotism  which  may  be  expected  to 


1  Cecconi,  Storia  del  Concilio  Ecumenico  Vaticano,  Doc.  clvii.,  Vol.  II, 
pp.  318—322.  *  Doc.  clix.,  p.  326. 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  39 

distinguish    a    priesthood    laying    claim    to    infallible 
authority. 

/"   The  record  of  the  papacy  in  relation  to  the  subject  of  ) 
I  personal  rights  and  liberties  remains  to  be  noticed.    That  / 
record  has  been  substantially  uniform  from  the  beginning 
to  the  end  of  the  century.     In  their  teachings  and  in 
their  acts  of  administration  the  popes  from  Pius  VII  to 
Leo  XIII  have  declared  themselves  the  faithful  heirs  of 
mediaeval  traditions.     Pius  VII  in  a  letter  to  the  nuncio 
at  Vienna  in  1805  approved  the  plan  of  Innocent  III  for 
repressing  heresy,  according  to  which  private  offenders 
were  exposed  to  the  penalty  of  confiscation  of  goods,  and 
heretical   princes   were   liable  to  be   deprived   of   their 
sovereignty  through  the  release  of  their  subjects  from  all 
oaths  of  loyalty.     This  seemed  to  him  a  salutary  plan, 
and  he  only  regretted  that  the  evil  times  made  resort  to 
it  quite  impossible.1    Leo  XII  took  pains  to  condemn  the\ 
school  of  thought  "which  professes  tolerance  or  indiffer-  \ 
ence  not  only  in  civil  but  also  in  religious  questions,  and   \ 
which  teaches  that  God  has  given  man  full  liberty,  so 
that  he  may  without  any  danger  to  his  salvation  join  / 
the  sect  which  best  suits  his  private  judgment"2 — "a  con^ 
demnation,"  says  Nielsen  very  justly,  "that  in  its  conse-\ 
quences,  and  interpreted  according  to  Roman  Catholic  j 
principles,   became  a  condemnation   of  liberty  of  con-/ 
science  and  religious  freedom."3     Gregory  XVI  in  th6 
encyclical  of  May  26,   1832,  characterized  as  madness 
(delir  amentum')  the  opinion  that  "liberty  of  conscience 
should  be  asserted  and  vindicated  for  everyone."4 


1  Janus  (Bellinger),  Der  Papst  und  das  Concil,  pp.  34,  35. 
*  Bullarium  Romanum,  XVI.  47. 

1  History  of  the  Papacy  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  II.  is. 
4  Cited  by  Baur,  Geschichte  der  Christlichen  Kirche,  V.  255. 


40  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

An  approving  reference  was  made  by  Pius  IX  to  the 
language  of  Gregory  XVI.  In  the  encyclical  Quanta 
Cur  a,  issued  in  1864,  he  used  these  vigorous  terms :  "You 
know  well,  venerable  fathers,  that  in  this  time  not  a  few 
are  found  who,  applying  to  civil  association  the  impious 
and  absurd  principle  of  naturalism,  as  it  is  called,  dare 
to  teach  that  the  most  excellent  plan  of  public  society  and 
civil  progress  requires  that  human  society  should  be  con- 
stituted and  governed  without  respect  to  religion,  as  if 
it  did  not  exist,  or  at  least  without  making  any  distinction 
between  the  true  and  the  false  religions.  And  contrary 
to  the  teaching  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  the  Church,  and 
the  holy  fathers,  they  do  not  hesitate  to  assert  that  that 
is  the  most  excellent  condition  of  society  in  which  the 
government  does  not  recognize  the  duty  of  coercing  with 
prescribed  punishments  the  violators  of  the  Catholic  re- 
ligion except  so  far  as  the  public  peace  may  demand. 
Proceeding  from  this  altogether  false  idea  of  the  proper 
management  of  society,  they  do  not  fear  to  foster  the 
opinion  injurious  in  the  highest  degree  to  the  Catholic 
Church  and  to  the  salvation  of  souls,  called  by  our  prede- 
cessor of  venerable  memory,  Gregory  XVI,  a  madness, 
that  is,  the  opinion  that  liberty  of  conscience  and  of  wor- 
ship is  the  proper  right  of  every  man,  which  ought  to  be 
proclaimed  by  law  in  every  rightly  constituted  society, 
and  that  citizens  have  a  right  to  a  total  liberty  which 
ought  not  to  be  restrained  by  any  civil  or  ecclesiastical 
authority,  and  in  the  use  of  which  they  may  be  able  to 
make  open  publication  of  their  views  whether  by  voice,  or 
by  the  press,  or  in  any  other  way.  While  they  rashly 
make  such  affirmations,  they  do  not  think  and  consider 
that  they  preach  a  liberty  of  perdition."  Some  of  these 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  41 

papal  phrases  might  be  regarded  as  describing  an  over- 
wrought scheme  of  liberty,  a  liberty  running  into  license ; 
but  others  of  them  evidently  smite  such  a  scheme  of 
tolerance  as  is  very  commonly  recognized  by  existing 
governments.  That  the  pope  meant  to  discountenance 
the  modern  notion  of  religious  tolerance  received  addi- 
tional demonstration  in  the  contents  of  the  Syllabus  of 
Errors  which  accompanied  the  encyclical.  In  that  sylla- 
bus the  following  stand  among  the  condemned  proposi- 
tions :  "The  Church  has  not  the  power  of  availing  herself 
of  force,  or  of  any  direct  or  indirect  temporal  power.  In 
the  present  day  it  is  no  longer  expedient  that  the  Catholic 
religion  should  be  held  as  the  only  religion  of  the  State, 
to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  modes  of  worship.  It  has 
been  wisely  provided  by  law,  in  some  countries  called 
Catholic,  that  persons  coming  to  reside  therein  shall  en- 
joy the  public  exercise  of  their  own  worship."1  Very 
little  skill  is  required  to  deduce  the  positive  propositions 
which  follow  logically  from  the  condemnation  of  these 
sentences.  In  the  affirmative  version  of  the  Jesuit 
Schrader  the  first  of  them  runs  as  follows :  "The  Church 
has  the  power  to  apply  external  coercion :  she  has  also  a 
temporal  authority  direct  and  indirect."2 

Leo  XIII  was  as  explicit  as  possible  in  declaring  his 
agreement  with  his  predecessors.  Having  referred  to 
the  strictures  passed  by  Gregory  XVI  on  liberty  of  con- 
science, and  cited  the  words  in  which  that  pontiff  con- 
demned the  separation  of  Church  and  State,  and  having 
also  taken  note  of  the  safe  guidance  afforded  to  Catholics 
by  Pius  IX  in  his  Syllabus  of  Errors,  he  added :  "From 
these  decisions  of  the  popes,  it  is  clearly  to  be  understood 

1  Nos.  24,  77,  78.  *  Cited  by  Gladstone,  Vaticanism,  p.  77. 


42  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

that  the  origin  of  public  power  is  to  be  sought  from  God 
himself,  and  not  from  the  multitude ;  that  the  free  play  for 
sedition  is  repugnant  to  reason;  that  it  is  a  crime  for 
private  individuals,  and  a  crime  for  States,  to  observe 
nowhere  the  duties  of  religion,  or  to  treat  in  the  same 
way  different  kinds  of  religion;  that  the  uncontrolled 
right  of  thinking,  and  publicly  proclaiming  one's 
thoughts,  is  not  inherent  in  the  rights  of  citizens,  nor 
in  any  sense  to  be  placed  among  those  things  which  are 
worthy  of  favor  or  patronage."1  The  statement  of  the 
pope  that  it  is  a  crime  for  States  to  proceed  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  parity  of  creeds  is  subsequently  modified  by 
the  admission  that  a  civil  administrator  is  excusable  for 
granting  a  place  to  various  forms  of  religion  when  he 
cannot  do  otherwise  without  incurring  great  loss  or  dam- 
age. Leo  XIII  left  no  ambiguity,  however,  about  his 
conception  of  the  greatness  of  the  intrinsic  obligation  of 
the  secular  ruler  to  award  a  preferred  place  to  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church.  He  returned  to  the  subject  in  the 
encyclical  on  Christian  Liberty,  June  20,  1888.  Stated 
in  brief  the  assumption  in  this  document  is  that  the  State 
owes  it  to  God  to  profess  and  to  patronize  the  true  reli- 
gion ;  that  it  is  not  difficult  to  determine,  at  least  in  any 
Roman  Catholic  domain,  that  the  Roman  Catholic  is  the 
true  religion ;  and  that  in  conserving  a  privileged  place 
to  this  religion  restrictions  ought  to  be  placed  upon  free- 
dom of  speech  and  of  the  press. 
/^  Concrete  examples  are  not  wanting  of  the  inclination 

/  of  Leo  XIII  to  give  practical  application  to  the  maxims 
which  he  has  dogmatically  asserted.    In  a  number  of  in- 

\stances  he  has  bewailed  the  disgrace  which  has  befallen 

1  Encyclical  on  the  Christian  Constitution  of  States,  Nov.  i,  1885  _ 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  43 

Rome  through  the  contaminating  presence  of  ProtestantX 
schools  and  places  of  worship,  and  complained  of  the 
power  which  has  despoiled  him  of  the  faculty  of  worthily  I 
guarding  the  seat  of  Christ's  vicar  from  this  pollution. J 
He  says:  "Every  reason  persuades  that  in  the  holy  city, 
consecrated  by  the  blood  of  the  chief  apostle  and  of  so 
many  heroes  of  Christianity,  the  religion  of  Christ  ought 
to  reign  supreme,  and  the  universal  teacher  of  the  faith, 
the  avenger  of  Christian  morality,  ought  to  have  unre- 
stricted power  to  close  here  the  access  to  all  impiety  and 
to  maintain  the  purity  of  Catholic  instruction."1  A  kin- 
dred application  of  maxims  was  made  in  1889,  m  tne 
earnest  admonition  which  the  pope  addressed  to  the 
emperor  of  Brazil  against  the  scheme  of  the  minister  of 
state  to  grant  liberty  of  worship  and  teaching.  Such  a 
scheme,  he  argues,  as  involving  the  parity  of  creeds  be- 
fore the  law,  detracts  from  the  rights  of  "that  one  true 
religion  which  God  has  established  in  the  world  and  dis- 
tinguished by  characters  and  signs  very  clear  and  definite, 
in  order  that  all  may  be  able  to  recognize  it  as  such  and 
embrace  it."  And  he  remarks  further:  "With  the  said 
liberty  is  placed  in  the  same  line  truth  and  error,  the  faith 
and  heresy,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  and  any  human 
institution  whatever.  .  .  .  Already  on  other  occasions, 
in  public  documents  addressed  to  the  Catholic  world,  we 
have  demonstrated  how  erroneous  is  the  teaching  of 
those  who,  under  the  seducing  name  of  liberty  of  wor- 
ship, proclaim  the  legal  apostasy  of  society  from  Its  divine 
Author."2 


1  Epist.  ad  Card.  Vicarium  Monaco  la  Valetta,  June  26,  1878;  Epist. 
ad  Card.  Nina  de  Praecipuis  Pontificis  Curis,  Aug.  27,  1878;  Epist.  ad  Card. 
Vicarium  Monaco  la  Valetta  de  Scholis  Urbis,  March  25,  1879;  Litters 
Encyclicae  ad  Episcopos  Italise,  Feb.  15,  1883,  3  Epist.,  July  19,  1889. 


44  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

Thus  the  popes  in  their  teachings  fall  not  a  whit  below 
the  plane  of  the  most  stalwart  maxims  of  the  theologians 
on  the  propriety  and  duty  of  restricting  personal  liberties 
in  the  interest  of  the  supremacy  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
religion.  Both  alike  repudiate  the  separation  of  Church 
and  State;  both  alike  insist  that  where  the  conditions 
make  it  feasible  the  State  should  give  a  preferred  and  in- 
deed an  exclusive  place  to  the  Roman  Catholic  religion; 
both  alike  contend  that  large  restrictions  should  be  placed 
upon  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press.  If  any  differ- 
ence is  observable  between  the  two  parties,  it  lies  in  the 
fact  that  some  of  the  theologians  have  admitted  a  larger 
qualification  of  the  obligation  of  secular  rulers  to  shut 
out  competing  worships  than  the  popes  have  seen  fit 
explicitly  to  sanction. 

IV. — REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  THEME  OF  THE  CHAPTER 

We  should  not  be  following  the  dictates  of  economy  in 
attempting  at  this  point  a  comprehensive  criticism  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  principle  of  ecclesiastical  authority.  As 
the  infallible  authority  of  the  Church  has  been  brought 
into  requisition  to  proclaim  and  enforce  the  dogma  of  the 
infallibility  of  the  pope,  and  also  is  irreversibly  committed 
to  an  ultra  sacramental  system,  it  is  exposed  to  the  full 
weight  of  the  enormous  objections  which  hold  against 
that  dogma  and  that  system.  The  consummating  stage 
of  criticism  must  wait,  therefore,  for  the  presentation 
of  those  objections.  Still,  it  will  be  quite  in  order  to 
notice  here  the  flimsiness  of  the  grounds  on  which  the 
infallible  authority  of  the  Church  is  maintained. 

The  scriptural  ground  hardly  admits  of  sober  discus- 
sion. Only  an  exegesis  already  believed  to  be  infallible 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  45 

can  gain  any  credit  for  its  performance  when  it  attempts 
to  wrest  the  notion  of  ecclesiastical  infallibility  from 
biblical  texts.  Take  the  statement  most  relied  upon, 
namely,  the  declaration  that  the  gates  of  Hades  shall  not 
prevail  against  the  Church.  Suppose  the  spiritual 
brotherhood  founded  in  Christ  is  to  be  characterized  by 
an  imperishable  life,  is  to  remain  in  the  world  and  to 
have  an  enlarging  dominion  therein  so  long  as  earthly 
history  shall  continue ;  then  the  declaration  of  the  Master 
would  be  gloriously  fulfilled ;  an  historical  demonstration 
would  be  wrought  out  that  his  Church  is  able  to  stand 
against  all  the  forces  which  make  for  destruction.  Sur- 
vival, progress,  and  high  achievement  are  all  that  it  is  in 
any  wise  necessary  to  put  into  the  words  of  promise. 
They  contain  no  sort  of  assurance  that  the  Church  will 
always  go  forward  in  a  perfectly  straight  line,  will  be 
hampered  at  a  given  stage  by  no  imperfect  or  mistaken 
conceptions,  and  will  never  need  to  mend  a  single  formula 
to  which  it  has  once  given  its  sanction.  It  might  be  that 
this  society  should  have  a  title  to  immortality,  and  yet 
be  subject  in  no  slight  degree  to  the  law  of  progress 
through  trial,  conflict,  and  emendation,  which  notoriously 
governs  men  in  every  field  of  achievement.  It  might  be 
that  a  one-sided  development  should  occur,  and  then  find 
a  practical  offset  through  an  opposing  development;  that 
out  of  conflicting  types  the  higher  and  more  comprehen- 
sive type  should  be  evolved.  It  might  be  that  neither  the 
Greek,  nor  the  Roman,  nor  the  Protestant  form  should 
be  destined  to  hold  the  field ;  but  rather  that  through  their 
interaction  a  form  more  adequate  to  express  the  pure 
content  of  Christianity  and  to  satisfy  the  whole  round 
of  man's  religious  needs  should  be  evolved.  We  are 


46  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

not  saying  that  such  will  be  the  outcome.  The  point  of 
emphasis  is  that  an  outcome  of  that  sort  would  amply 
satisfy  the  demands  of  Christ's  promise.  To  put  into  his 
words  a  hard  and  fast  assurance  of  infallibility  is  per- 
fectly gratuitous. 

Take,  again,  the  expressed  obligation  to  hear  the 
Church,  or  to  give  heed  to  those  who  fulfill  in  the  Church 
the  office  of  teaching.  Would  there  be  no  serious  duty 
in  that  direction,  no  solemn  requirement  to  study  closely 
the  general  wish  and  welfare,  unless  the  Church  should 
be  accounted  infallible?  Would  the  individual  who  dis- 
turbs the  Christian  brotherhood  by  a  spirit  of  faction  and 
ill-grounded  contention  do  no  despite  to  Christ  unless 
that  brotherhood  should  be  rated  infallible?  Manifestly 
such  obligations  carry  no  suggestion  of  a  strictly  infalli- 
ble authority.  If  authority  must  be  inerrant  in  order  to 
have  a  claim  to  respect,  then  there  is  good  scriptural  war- 
rant for  assigning  to  the  temporal  ruler  that  marvelous 
endowment.  "The  powers  that  be,"  says  Paul,  "are  or- 
dained of  God.  Therefore  he  that  resisteth  the  power 
withstandeth  the  ordinance  of  God ;  and  they  that  with- 
stand shall  receive  to  themselves  judgment."1  Paul  says 
these  words  in  behalf  of  obedience  to  those  who  bear  the 
sword,  that  is,  secular  rulers.  No  stronger  words  can  be 
found  in  the  New  Testament  relative  to  the  obligation  to 
obey  ecclesiastical  authority.  Let  it  be  confessed,  then, 
that  secular  rulers  are  infallible,  or  let  it  be  admitted  that 
the  New  Testament  affords  no  ground  for  ascribing  in- 
fallibility to  a  priestly  hierarchy. 

In  a  double  view  the  Scriptures  render  poor  service  to 
the  claim  of  infallibility  for  the  Church.  Not  only  do 

1  Rom.  xiii.  9, 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  47 

they  fail  to  affirm  it;  by  indisputable  facts  of  their  con- 
tents they  refute  it.  As  was  observed  in  the  first  section 
of  the  chapter,  Roman  Catholic  authority  in  the  attempt 
to  safeguard  itself  has  been  driven  to  assert  a  high  tech- 
nical theory  of  the  Bible.  Through  councils,  popes,  and 
theologians  it  has  installed  a  stringent  theory  of  biblical 
inerrancy.  Now  such  a  theory  has  been  brought  into 
desperate  straits.  The  progress  of  scientific  investigation 
in  the  modern  era  has  been  continually  enlarging  the 
body  of  devout  scholars  who  discover  absolutely  com- 
pelling grounds  for  its  rejection.  This  is  not  saying  that 
scientific  investigation  properly  cancels  or  even  curtails 
appreciation  for  the  Bible.  On  the  contrary,  it  can  be 
affirmed  that  it  serves  to  exalt  the  primacy  of  the  Bible 
in  the  world's  literature.  The  change  which  it  effects 
respects  the  ground  of  appreciation.  Instead  of  permit- 
ting the  assumption  of  a  detailed  infallibility  to  serve  as 
that  ground,  it  emphasizes  the  incomparable  wealth  of 
the  biblical  contents,  the  fact  that  the  Bible  as  a  whole 
contains  the  materials  of  a  perfect  ethical  and  religious 
system,  the  system  within  which  man  finds  the  most 
efficacious  means  of  satisfaction  and  spiritual  upbuilding. 
Charged  with  a  consciousness  that  this  imperishable  dis- 
tinction belongs  to  the  Bible,  scholars  are  able  to  reconcile 
themselves  to  the  conclusion  that  the  sacred  book  contains 
an  element  of  errancy.  At  any  rate,  they  are  compelled 
to  admit  that  the  tokens  of  errancy  are  there,  and  cannot 
be  denied  without  absolutely  discrediting  their  power  of 
rational  vision.  Doubtless  it  is  easy  for  the  Roman 
Catholic  hierarchy  to  thrust  out  the  foot  of  authority 
against  these  scholars  and  all  their  conclusions.  But  in 
the  field  of  scientific  induction  a  foot-thrust  does  not 


48  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

secure  final  settlements.  It  did  not  retire  the  Copernican 
theory,  and  there  is  no  likelihood  that  it  will  be  able  to 
retire  the  verdict  which  critical  scholarship  is  bringing 
against  a  strained  traditional  conception  of  the  Bible. 
Thus  the  dogma  of  ecclesiastical  infallibility  runs  at  this 
point  against  appalling  difficulty.  The  very  attempt  to 
safeguard  it  through  scriptural  sanctions  has  furnished 
against  it  means  of  victorious  assault. 

On  the  plane  of  rational  considerations  the  principle  of 
ecclesiastical  infallibility  is  sadly  in  need  of  being  ac- 
credited. A  sane  psychology  is  puzzled  to  discover  how 
from  fallible  units  an  infallible  whole  can  be  derived.  If 
the  bishops  taken  singly  cannot  be  trusted  implicitly,  why 
should  they  be  above  suspicion  when  a  controlling  major- 
ity happens  to  compound  a  decision.  We  are  quite  justi- 
fied in  asking  with  the  Jesuit  Reynaud :  "If  yEsop's  ass, 
though  in  a  lion's  skin,  was  still  but  an  ass,  would  a  whole 
herd  of  such  animals  form  an  assembly  of  lions?"1  It 
is  urged  indeed  by  the  Romish  apologist  that  we  are  not 
to  consider  what  might  be  expected  on  the  basis  of  natural 
sequence,  but  must  take  account  of  a  supernatural  cause, 
namely,  the  operation  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  But  who  has 
shown  that  the  Holy  Spirit  either  hasjgiven  or  could  have 
given  infallible  direction  to  every  company  of  bishops 
which  has  chosen  to  meddle  with  abstruse  points  of 
dogma  ?  The  historic  assemblies  have  sometimes  approx- 
imated to  the  character  of  mobs  in  the  violence  of  the 
passions  by  which  they  have  been  shaken.  To  suppose 
that  such  companies — even  the  best  of  them — can  be 
withheld  by  the  Holy  Spirit  from  speaking  before  they 
are  ready  to  speak  infallibly,  or  be  constrained  to  utter 

1  Putnam,  The  Censorship  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  I.  138. 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  49 

only  infallible  truth  when  they  do  happen  to  speak,  is  to 
predicate  the  rankest  kind  of  determinism.  The  Holy 
Spirit  who,  beyond  all  shadow  of  doubt,  can  accomplish 
that  much  ought  to  find  no  serious  obstacle  to  placing  a 
correct  creed  in  any  man's  head  at  any  point  in  his  career. 
But  if  the  Divine  Agent,  in  a  consistent  use  of  his  power, 
can  overmaster  constitutional  limitations  to  that  extent, 
why  are  men  left  to  stumble  on  in  error?  On  the  same 
supposition,  what  means  the  scriptural  teaching  about  the 
liability  of  grieving  the  Holy  Spirit,  about  the  way  of 
faith  being  blocked  by  a  false  temper,  about  the  obscura- 
tion which  necessarily  results  from  an  evil  eye  or  mixed 
purpose,  about  gaining  the  knowledge  of  truth  through 
obedience  to  the  demands  of  truth?  The  implication  of 
such  lines  of  representation  is  as  plain  as  the  day.  To 
suppose  the  infallible  determination  of  doctrine  to  have 
been  given  over  unconditionally  to  a  hierarchy  is  to  sup- 
pose a  thing  repugnant  to  the  fundamental  ethical  stand- 
point of  the  New  Testament.  The  Pharisees  who  sought 
honor  of  one  another  could  not  get  the  right  vision  of 
truth.  The  fact  that  they  sat  in  Moses'  seat  availed 
nothing  to  that  end.  No  more  will  lordly  claims  to  be  in 
the  line  of  succession  from  Christ  through  the  apostles 
avail.  As  certainly  as  the  free  wills  of  unsanctified  men 
can  block  the  way  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  are  distinctly 
liable  to  block  his  way  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  there 
can  be  no  sure  guarantee  that  a  crowd  of  ecclesiastics  will 
deliver  themselves  infallibly  at  any  given  point.  Least 
of  all  can  a  guarantee  of  that  sort  be  afforded  in  relation 
to  a  crowd  which  makes  a  boast  of  its  infallibility.  The 
proud  claim  itself  has  a  natural  efficacy  to  aggravate 
errancy.  In  proportion  as  it  dominates  the  consciousness 


SO  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

it  works  disinclination  to  review  or  to  revise  a  position 
which  has  once  been  assumed.  It  provides  thus  a  motive 
to  canonize  mistakes,  a  temptation  to  make  blunders  im- 
mortal. The  hope  of  an  ideal  construction  of  Christianity 
at  the  hands  of  a  hierarchy  which  makes  a  speciality  of 
asserting  its  infallibility  is  out  of  the  question.  Doubtless 
divine  promise  encourages  the  expectation  that  such  a 
construction  will  be  achieved.  The  leading  of  the  Spirit 
is  a  real  factor  in  history.  The  humble  and  obedient  gen- 
erations will  be  led  forward  in  the  apprehension  of  truth. 
But  there  is  no  rational  ground  to  suppose  that  the 
progress  will  take  place  through  the  exercise  by  a  priestly 
hierarchy  of  a  magical  prerogative  to  put  a  sheer  infalli- 
bility into  dogmatic  pronouncements  and  anathemas. 

It  was  noticed  that  the  Romish  apologist  makes  great 
account  of  the  practical  necessity  of  ecclesiastical  infalli- 
bility. He  urges  that  unless  there  is  a  visible  guide 
equipped  with  an  inerrant  faculty  for  determining  the 
true  Scriptures,  for  rightly  interpreting  them,  and  for 
settling  points  of  controversy,  men  will  be  left  without 
any  definite  rule  of  faith,  without  any  basis  of  assurance 
in  matters  of  belief.  Protestantism,  he  contends,  in  its 
repudiation  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Church,  has  no  rule 
of  faith,  and  simply  sets  its  votaries  adrift  on  a  sea  of 
conflicting  opinions. 

In  reply  it  is  to  be  said,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  con- 
venience of  an  endowment  is  wretchedly  insufficient  proof 
of  its  existence.  It  would  be  very  convenient  to  have  a 
holy  Church  in  the  world,  a  Church  holy  not  merely  in  a 
few  elect  representatives  but  in  the  great  mass  of  its 
members.  What  awful  reproach  Christianity  has  suf- 
fered from  the  crying  misdeeds  and  besotted  lives  of 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  51 

great  multitudes  of  its  professed  adherents!  With  what 
luster,  on  the  other  hand,  would  it  be  crowned,  and  with 
what  victorious  efficacy  would  its  message  be  informed, 
if  in  all  its  ranks  the  ideal  spirit  of  Jesus  could  have  full 
sway!  It  would  be  inexpressibly  convenient  to  have  a 
holy  Church.  But  that  fact  affords  no  warrant  for 
affirming  that  the  Church  without  spot  or  wrinkle  or  any 
such  thing  actually  exists  in  the  world.  No  more  does 
the  asserted  convenience  or  practical  necessity  of  infalli- 
ble guidance  prove  the  existence  of  an  infallible  Church 
or  hierarchy.  As  for  the  statement  of  Gibbons  that  the 
Church,  like  all  of  God's  works,  must  be  perfect,  there 
is  no  call  for  refutation.  Common  eyesight  furnishes  the 
needful  answer.  Theory  cannot  be  permitted  to  contra- 
dict fact ;  and  on  the  side  of  theory,  too,  it  is  quite  obvious 
that  the  Church,  as  being  made  up  of  men  who  are  in 
part  self-formed,  may  very  well  show  marks  of  imperfect 
workmanship. 

Again,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  the  supposition  of  in- 
fallibility is  one  thing,  and  intelligent  vision  of  the  cre- 
dentials of  infallibility  is  quite  another  thing.  Evidently 
the  passive  acceptance  of  the  supposition  affords  no 
rational  basis  of  assurance.  In  the  use  of  that  expedient 
one  gains  the  same  kind  of  security  which  was  gained  by 
the  old  lady  who  was  afraid  to  walk  across  the  crazy 
bridge  at  Bath,  and  so  got  herself  carried  across  inclosed 
in  a  sedan  chair.1  What  is  won  is  not  assurance  against 
danger  of  falling  into  error,  but  a  muffling  up  of  the  eye- 
sight which  may  conceal  in  some  measure  the  danger. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  one  undertakes  to  inspect  the  cre- 
dentials of  the  asserted  infallibility  of  the  Church,  he 

1  Salmon,  The  Infallibility  of  the  Church,  p.  74. 


52  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

will  find  that  by  no  means  is  he  clear  of  grounds  of  doubt 
and  incertitude,  not  to  say  of  downright  skepticism.  No 
Protestant,  in  fact,  encounters  from  his  standpoint  a  more 
difficult  and  perplexing  task  than  that  devolved  upon  the 
Romanist.  It  is  quite  as  easy  to  gain  a  solid  conviction 
as  to  the  beauty,  worth,  and  truthfulness  of  the  essential 
biblical  system  as  it  is  to  determine  whether  the  Church 
through  all  the  enormous  range  of  its  complex  history 
has  given  credible  proof  of  its  infallibility.  To  pass  upon 
the  adequacy  or  inadequacy  of  that  proof  is  a  task  of 
private  judgment.  The  Romanist,  then,  no  more  than 
the  Protestant  has  any  reputable  way  for  escaping  the 
exercise  of  private  judgment.  Unless  he  is  to  be  a  mere 
lifeless  image  moved  from  without,  he  must  judge  of  the 
legitimacy  of  the  claim  to  infallible  authority  with  which 
the  Church  confronts  him,  and  in  view  of  the  tremendous 
character  of  the  claim  it  is  obvious  that  he  is  bound  to 
judge  on  the  ground  of  the  closest  scrutiny  that  he  is 
able  to  make.  Accordingly,  to  represent  that  the  supposi- 
tion of  ecclesiastical  infallibility  releases  him  from  the 
difficulties  and  hazards  of  private  judgment  is  to  indulge 
in  a  transparent  sophistry  or  untruth.  Private  judgment 
cannot  be  shut  out  by  any  supposition,  any  more  than  an 
intelligible  foundation  for  the  earth  can  be  secured  by 
placing  it  upon  an  elephant,  and  the  elephant  upon  a 
tortoise.  The  individual  who  is  told  that  he  must  rest 
upon  the  infallible  authority  of  the  Church  is  under 
rational  constraint  to  ask  upon  what  certain  proofs  the 
infallible  authority  of  the  Church  rests;  and,  if  in  the 
first  instance  he  gives  hasty  assent  to  the  high  ecclesias- 
tical demand,  a  serious  obligation  for  renewed  inquiry 
and  investigation  cannot  well  be  escaped.  No  one  is  en- 


PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  53 

titled  to  a  settled  assurance  on  the  ground  of  carelessness, 
indifference,  or  lazy  assumption.  The  normal  assurance 
can  be  gained  by  no  cheaper  means  than  the  labor  in- 
volved in  working  out  a  synthesis  of  reason,  history,  and 
experience.  To  attempt  to  gain  it  by  an  easy  and  sum- 
mary method  is  to  indulge  in  essential  quackery. 

Closely  inspected  the  standpoint  of  the  infallibilist  may 
be  seen  to  have  a  certain  affiliation  with  skepticism.  It 
involves  a  very  disparaging  estimate  of  the  power  of 
divine  truth  to  attest  itself  in  human  consciousness  gen- 
erally. It  implies  that  only  by  the  enginery  of  a  hier- 
archy supernaturally  manipulated  can  truth  be  propelled 
into  the  world  and  kept  on  its  way.  Evidently  in  such  a 
point  of  view  there  is  an  element  of  distrust,  an  inclina- 
tion of  the  plane  of  thought  toward  an  agnostic  or  skep- 
tical outcome.1 

The  criticism  of  the  principle  of  ecclesiastical  infalli- 
bility, even  within  the  limits  appropriate  to  this  volume, 
necessarily  calls  for  a  very  considerable  reference  to  the 
contents  of  church  history.  But  we  prefer  to  postpone 
this  part  of  our  theme.  In  the  present  connection  it  will 
suffice  to  notice  how  modern  civilization  repudiates  capital 
inferences  from  the  principle  of  infallibility.  As  was 
noticed  above,  the  priestly  hierarchy  infers  that  the  civil 
State  should  be  distinctly  subordinate  to  the  ecclesiastical 
power,  that  a  preferred  place  should  be  given  by  the  State 
to  the  Roman  Catholic  religion,  and  that  wherever  it  is 
practically  possible  every  competing  form  of  religion 
should  be  excluded  under  pains  and  penalties.  Now,  it 
is  undeniable  that  modern  civilization,  as  expressed  in  the 


1  Compare  Oman,  The  Problem  of  Faith  and  Freedom  in  the  Last  Two 
Centuries,  pp.  23,  267. 


54  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

fixed  policies  of  Christian  nations,  has  been  moving  in  a 
direction  adverse  to  these  inferences.  Its  trend  is 
contradictory  to  the  assumptions  of  the  ecclesiastical 
power.  Of  course,  it  costs  the  ecclesiastical  power  no 
trouble  to  rejoin  that  modern  civilization  is  at  fault  and 
needs  to  be  corrected.  But  the  antithesis  remains  and 
must  work  distrust  as  to  the  legitimacy  of  the  claim  to 
infallible  authority  which  is  paraded  by  the  hierarchy. 
The  thought  will  claim  recognition  that  reason,  con- 
science, and  experience,  as  represented  in  the  great  lay 
forces  of  the  world,  must  count  for  something,  and  that 
the  type  of  civilization  which  they  are  helping  to  work 
out  is  quite  as  likely  to  be  in  the  right  as  is  the  type  which 
suits  an  ambitious  priesthood. 


CHAPTER  II 

PAPAL  ABSOLUTISM 

I. — GALLICANISM  IN  THE  EARLY  PART  OF  THE  NINE- 
TEENTH CENTURY 

A  PROPER  understanding  of  the  movement  by  which  \ 
papal  absolutism  of  the  most  unmitigated  type — that  is,  \ 
papal  sovereignty  unrestricted  by  the  least  remnant  of    \ 
coordinate  authority  and  armed  with  the  sanctions  of  in-     \ 
fallibility — was  raised  to  the  rank  of  dogma  requires, 
first  of  all,  an  estimate  of  the  barrier  put  in  its  way  by  the      / 
opposing  form  of  belief  which  is  customarily  termed   / 
Gallicanism. 

Taken  in  its  general  sense  the  word  "Gallicanism"  is 
indicative  of  a  moderate  papal  theory.  It  affiliates  with 
the  platform  put  forth  by  the  Council  of  Constance,  which 
plainly  qualifies  the  monarchy  of  the  pope  and  denies  to 
him  an  independent  infallibility.  In  sustaining  itself 
against  papal  hostility  it  is  not  unnatural  for  Gallicanism, 
at  least  in  a  country  governed  by  Roman  Catholic  rulers, 
to  expect  support  from  the  civil  power,  and  in  return  to 
construe  liberally  the  prerogatives  of  that  power  within 
the  ecclesiastical  domain.  But  this  is  a  secondary  trait 
and  is  not  of  necessity  characteristic  of  a  party  which 
contends  for  substantial  limitation  of  papal  absolutism. 
It  will  not  be  arbitrary,  therefore,  in  the  present  discus- 
sion to  treat  the  contention  for  such  limitation  as  the 
distinctive  feature  of  Gallicanism.  Proceeding  from  this 
point  of  view,  we  have,  as  our  immediate  task,  the 

55 


56  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

determination  of  the  extent  to  which  a  Gallican,  as  op- 
posed to  an  Ultramontane  or  absolutist,  theory  of  the 
papal  monarchy  had  place  in  the  first  part  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  We  respect  special  associations  of  the 
subject  in  beginning  with  France. 

A  material  abatement  from  the  very  pronounced  Gal- 
lican articles,  which  were  drawn  up  by  Bossuet  and  sub- 
scribed by  an  assembly  of  the  French  clergy  in  1682, 
had  already  occurred  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolu- 
tion of  1789.  The  prolonged  strife  over  the  Unigenitus 
constitution  had  wrought  for  that  result.  A  fraction  of 
the  nation,  it  is  true,  may  have  been  made  by  the  strife 
all  the  more  hostile  to  high  papal  claims.  But  the  party 
— including  a  majority  of  the  bishops — which  undertook 
to  cooperate  with  the  pope  in  forcing  the  unholy  consti- 
tution down  the  throats  of  the  people  was  under  practical 
constraint  to  magnify  the  obligation  of  ready  obedience 
to  papal  mandates.  Thus  lessons  in  Ultramontanism 
began  to  be  voiced  by  episcopal  lips,  and  the  field  com- 
manded by  the  Gallican  traditions  was  much  abridged. 

During  the  storm  of  the  Revolution  there  was,  of 
course,  little  ambition  for  active  controversy  over  the  old 
points  of  dispute  relative  to  church  constitution.  The 
great  question  was  whether  the  Church  could  find  means 
of  survival  under  any  form.  But  evidently  the  memory 
of  the  enormous  upheaval  could  hardly  fail  to  affect,  in 
the  following  period,  the  balance  between  Gallicanism 
and  Ultramontanism.  In  so  far  as  it  begot  a  horror  of 
revolutionary  violence  it  impelled  to  increased  apprecia- 
tion for  any  long-standing  authority  which  might  serve 
as  a  bulwark  against  the  forces  of  disruption.  The  par- 
tisans of  high  papal  claims  undoubtedly  derived  from  it 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  57 

a  vantage  ground  in  driving  forward  their  scheme  of 
centralized  authority. 

While  thus  an  opposing  current  was  being  prepared, 
Gallican  sentiment  was  still  a  very  considerable  factor  at 
the  beginning  of  the  century.  Probably  in  the  first 
decades  very  few  of  the  clergy  were  inclined  positively  to 
advocate  the  Ultramontane  platform.  At  the  same  time 
they  may  not  have  been  very  fervent  or  pronounced  advo- 
cates of  Gallicanism;  but  there  are  reasons  for  believing 
that  a  large  proportion  of  them  gave  a  general  recognition 
to  its  standpoint.  Prominent  among  these  reasons  are 
known  facts  respecting  the  education  of  the  clergy.  The 
manuals  of  theology  most  in  use  in  the  seminaries  were 
of  a  Gallican  cast.  This  was  notably  the  case  with  Bailly's 
Theology,  which  served  as  a  text-book  in  a  majority  of 
the  seminaries  during  the  first  half  of  the  century.  It 
distinctly  repudiated  the  notion  of  papal  infallibility,  as- 
serted the  ecumenical  character  of  the  Councils  of  Con- 
stance and  Basle,  and  placed  restrictions  on  the  preroga- 
tive of  the  pope  to  judge  bishops.1  Manifestly  a  Church 
which  patronized  this  manual  so  extensively  must  have 
been  in  no  slight  degree  imbued  with  Gallican  sentiments. 
An  evidence  in  the  same  direction  is  furnished  by 
Bouvier's  Theology.  This  manual,  as  appears  from  the 
edition  of  1834,  if  a  degree  or  two  less  Gallican  than 
that  of  Bailly,  still  maintained  that  papal  infallibility  is 
but  an  opinion  which  one  is  as  free  to  reject  as  to  accept, 
that  the  bishops  are  judges  of  the  faith  instead  of  being 
mere  witnesses  thereto,  and  that  the  council  is  competent 
to  examine  a  pope  suspected  of  heresy  or  schism,  and,  if 


1  Michaud,  De  la  Falsification  des  Cat£chimes  Fran9ais  et  des  Manuels 
de  Th6ologie,  1872,  pp.  iijff. 


58  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

he  is  found  guilty,  to  condemn  or  depose  him.1  Further 
proof  is  supplied  by  reference  to  the  circulation  of  various 
works  bearing  a  Gallican  stamp,  such  as  the  Dictionary 
of  Bergier  in  its  earlier  form,  Lequeux's  Manual  of  Canon 
Law,  and  Guettee's  History  of  the  Church  of  France. 
The  last  named,  which  was  issued  near  the  middle  of  the 
century,  was  commended  by  forty-two  French  bishops.2 

Could  the  testimony  of  Baroche,  the  minister  of  wor- 
ship, be  accepted,  it  would  be  necessary  to  conclude  that 
even  at  the  time  when  the  Vatican  Council  was  about  to 
assemble  the  great  majority  of  the  French  clergy  were 
averse  to  the  Ultramontane  theory  of  papal  supremacy 
and  infallibility.3  But  the  minister  seems  to  have  over- 
estimated the  strength  of  Gallican  sentiment  at  that  point. 
In  the  preceding  years  powerful  forces  had  been  at  work 
for  its  repression.  What  we  have  clear  warrant  for  say- 
ing is,  that  for  about  half  of  the  century  Gallican  text- 
books were  extensively  used  in  the  education  of  the 
clergy,  and  that  a  full  third  of  the  bishops,  including  the 
most  potent  representatives  of  the  French  episcopate, 
were  opposed,  up  to  the  conclusion  of  the  Vatican  Coun- 
cil, to  the  high  papal  scheme  which  was  consummated  by 
that  assembly.  That  the  same  standpoint  was  represented 
by  civilians  charged  with  governmental  responsibilities 
cannot  fairly  be  questioned.  In  fine,  though  not  a  domi- 
nant factor,  Gallicanism  was  still  a  great  factor  at  the 
middle  of  the  century.  This  is  admitted  in  a  recent 
Ultramontane  history.  Speaking  of  the  Gallican  plat- 
form, Granderath  says:  "This  teaching,  so  flattering  to 
the  national  feeling  of  the  French,  was  prescribed  by  state 


1  Michaud,  pp.  i38ff.  *  Ibid.,  pp.  iggff. 

»  Cecconi,  Storia  del  Concilio  Vaticano,  Doc.  cxxxix. 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  59 

authority  to  the  institutions  of  learning  and  established 
itself  in  clergy  and  people,  and,  although  the  number  of 
its  adherents  was  greatly  reduced  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, it  still  held  on  to  the  time  of  the  Vatican  Council. 
It  claimed  among  its  advocates  and  representatives  not 
only  laymen  and  statesmen,  but  also  a  considerable  list 
of  bishops  and  priests."1 

In  Germany  during  the  last  years  of  the  eighteenth 
century  and  the  first  of  the  nineteenth,  the  recoil  from  the 
spectacle  of  revolutionary  violence  and  rash  experimenta- 
tion, which  had  been  furnished  by  France,  tended  to  nar- 
row the  room  for  the  Gallicanism  which  had  been  prac- 
tically exemplified  by  the  Austrian  monarch  Joseph  II, 
and  promulgated  in  theory  by  the  writings  of  John 
Nicolas  von  Hontheim  and  Paul  Joseph  Riegger.2  Still, 
this  period  witnessed  some  special  manifestations  of  a 
disposition  to  champion  Gallican  principles.  Karl  von 
Dalberg,  who  held  for  a  time  the  dignity  of  Elector  of 
Mayence  under  the  Napoleonic  regime,  and  who  was 
administering  the  bishoprics  of  Regensburg  and  Con- 
stance at  his  death  in  1817,  was  a  patron  of  such  princi- 
ples. In  Heinrich  von  Wessenberg,  who  enjoyed  the  con- 
fidence of  Dalberg  and  stood  in  close  relation  with  him,  a 
resolute  champion  of  Gallicanism  appeared.  A  book 
published  by  him  in  i8i53  sketched  the  plan  of  a  new 
constitution  for  the  Catholic  Church  of  Germany,  a 
scheme  which  was  judged  to  tend  toward  loosened  con- 

1  Geschichte  des  vatikanischen  Konzils,  I.  152,  153. 

*  The  noted  work  of  Von  Hontheim  was  published  (1763-64)  under  an 
assumed  name.  The  title  ran,  Justini  Febronii  de  statu  ecclesite  et  legitima 
potentate  Romani  Pontificis  hber  singularis  ad  reuniendos  dissidentes  in 
religione  christianos  compositus. 

3 15ie  deutsche  Kirche.  Ein  Vorschlag  zu  ihrer  neuen  Begrundung  und 
Einrichtung. 


60  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

nection  with  Rome  and  enlarged  dependence  upon  the 
State.  Views  in  line  with  those  of  Wessenberg  were  ad- 
vocated in  the  same  era  by  Werkmeister  and  others.1 

From  the  close  of  the  second  decade  there  was  a 
strengthening  of  churchly  feeling  among  German 
Catholics.  Between  that  point  and  the  Vatican  Council 
a  considerable  development  in  the  direction  of  Ultramon- 
tanism  undoubtedly  occurred.  Romanticism,  with  its 
fondness  for  mediaeval  ideals,  contributed  in  a  measure 
to  that  end.  Friedrich  Schlegel  and  his  contemporaries 
of  kindred  spirit  were  inclined  to  assume  a  friendly 
attitude  to  Ultramontane  writings  and  teachings.  Still, 
it  is  not  to  be  overlooked  that  in  interest  and  purpose  the 
Catholic  Romanticists  were  at  a  considerable  remove 
from  the  party  in  which  Dechamps  and  Manning  figured 
as  spokesmen  and  managers.2  It  should  be  noticed  also 
that  the  so-called  Ultramontane  party  of  which  Joseph 
Gorres  was  the  leader,  while  disposed  vigorously  to 
champion  'Roman  Catholic  interests,  was  not  Ultramon- 
tane in  the  most  emphatic  sense,  or  in  the  sense  of  pur- 
posing and  striving  to  put  every  contrasted  school  under 
the  ban.3 

On  the  other  side,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  factors  more 
or  less  opposed  to  the  intrusion  of  Ultramontanism  con- 
tinued to  assert  themselves  in  the  sphere  of  German 
Catholicism.  Among  these  was  an  appreciative  acquaint- 
ance with  the  modern  philosophies  as  opposed  to  an 
exclusive  adherence  to  the  teaching  of  the  scholastics.  A 

1  Werner,  Geschichte  der  Katholischen  Theologie  in  Deutschland  seit 
dem  Trienter  Concil,  1866,  pp.  342-358. 

7  Some  of  Schlegel's  statements  must  be  positively  afflictive  to  the  eye- 
sight of  the  later  Ultramontane  school.     See  his  Philosophy  of  History, 
trans,  by  J.  B.  Robertson,  chaps,  xiii-xviii. 

8  Friednch,  Geschichte  des  vatikanischen  Konzils,  I.  aop. 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  61 

thinker  so  little  in  love  with  mediaeval  scholasticism  as 
Hermes  naturally  exerted  an  influence  adverse  to  papal 
absolutism;  and  it  is  on  record  that  his  disciple,  Droste- 
Hulshoff,  in  his  book  on  canon  law,  spoke  of  papal  infal- 
libility as  being  notoriously  denied  in  Germany  the  rank 
of  an  item  of  faith.1  There  was  also  a  speculative  vein 
in  such  men  as  Mohler  and  Staudenmaier  that  did  not 
lend  itself  readily  to  the  promotion  of  a  genuine  Ultra- 
montane scheme.  Mohler  indeed  spoke  of  the  typical 
Ultramontane  theory  as  representing  an  extreme  set  over 
against  a  contrary  extreme  in  pronounced  Gallicanism.2 
Among  his  contemporaries  Brenner,  Rothensee,  and  Drey 
commented  adversely  on  the  supposition  of  papal  infal- 
libility. The  last  named  says  in  his  noted  Apologetik: 
"The  pope  is  not  by  himself  infallible.  He  is  indeed  the 
official  successor  of  Saint  Peter,  as  the  bishops  are  the 
successors  of  the  apostles,  but  inspiration — -the  only  sure 
guarantee  of  infallibility — the  inspiration  of  Saint  Peter 
has  been  as  little  transmitted  to  him  as  the  inspiration  of 
the  other  apostles  to  the  bishops."3 

In  the  field  of  historical  investigation  a  very  decided 
repudiation  of  the  high  papal  theory  was  brought  forth. 
Hefele,  the  learned  historian  of  the  councils,  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  in  a  fair  treatment  of  recorded  facts 
it  is  impossible  to  rescue  the  notion  of  papal  infallibility. 
Dollinger,  whom  Werner  in  1866  declared  to  have 
ranked  for  nearly  a  generation  as  the  most  learned 
theologian  of  Catholic  Germany,4  advanced  to  an  in- 
vincible conviction  as  to  the  unhistoric  and  mischievous 

1  Friedrich,  I.  527.  See  also  Werner,  Geschichte  der  Katholischen 
Theologie,  pp.  411,  412. 

Kirchengeschichte  cited  by  Friedrich,  I.  528,  529. 


3  Cited  by  Friedrich,  I. 

4  Geschichte  der  Kathblfschen  Theologie,  p.  470. 


533- 

ische 


6a  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

character  of  the  Ultramontane  postulates.  In  his  earlier 
writings,  it  is  true,  largely  ruled  as  they  were  by  an 
ambition  to  sustain  the  Roman  Catholic  against  the 
Protestant  interpretation  of  history,  he  did  not  figure 
particularly  as  the  critic  of  Ultramontane  claims.  But 
as  these  claims  began  to  be  obtrusively  asserted,  and  his 
continued  investigations  gave  him  a  clearer  insight  into 
their  intrinsic  falsity,  he  set  himself  against  them  with 
tremendous  force  and  decision.  His  energy  of  spirit  was 
doubtless  an  appreciable  factor  in  equipping  for  a  valiant 
opposition  to  Ultramontanism  such  eminent  historical 
critics  as  Friedrich,  Langen,  and  Schulte. 

Judging  from  what  took  place  shortly  before  the 
Vatican  Council  and  during  the  sessions  of  that  assem- 
bly, we  are  obliged  to  conclude  that  the  advances  made 
by  Ultramontanism  in  Germany  in  the  preceding  part 
of  the  century,  though  substantial,  were  far  from  secur- 
ing to  it  a  general  ascendency.  Testimony  to  this  fact 
is  contained  in  the  dispatch  which  was  sent  by  the  papal 
nuncio  from  Munich,  March  17,  1869.  In  this  message 
the  pope's  agent  represents  that  a  special  type  of  liberal- 
ism, to  which  he  applies  the  name  of  "Germanism,"  has 
taken  hold  of  a  large  class  of  the  cultured.  Its  distinguish- 
ing characteristic,  he  says,  is  a  declared  sympathy  with 
the  methods  and  scientific  systems  of  the  Protestants  and 
a  reaction  against  the  doctrinal  influence  of  Rome  and  of 
the  Roman  congregations.  It  would  set  aside  the  old 
scholastic  philosophy  and  theology,  and  have  the  Church 
proclaim  the  liberty  of  science,  abolish  the  Congregation 
of  the  Index,  and  explain  the  propositions  of  the  Sylla- 
bus as  antiquated  formulae  of  the  curia.1  In  thus  writing 

1  Cecconi,  Storia  del  Concilio  Vaticano,  II.  440-444. 


PAPAL  ABSOLUTISM  63 

the  nuncio  doubtless  referred  more  directly  to  the  party 
of  which  Dollinger  was  a  leading  spirit.  His  language 
was  quite  too  strong  to  describe  the  attitude  of  the  Ger- 
man bishops.  Still,  it  was  true,  as  the  nuncio  regret- 
fully reported  a  few  months  later,  that  the  great  majority 
of  the  German  bishops  were  averse  to  erecting  the  notion 
of  papal  infallibility  into  a  dogma.1  The  record  of  the 
Vatican  Council  leaves  no  room  for  doubt  on  this  point. 
A  later  judgment  matches  that  of  the  nuncio  as  re- 
spects the  existence  in  Germany  of  a  formidable  opposi- 
tion to  the  absolutist  scheme  of  the  Ultramontane  party. 
'  "The  pamphlets,"  says  Granderath,  "which  appeared  in 
Germany  in  such  large  numbers  against  the  council,  are 
filled  with  Gallicanism  and  render  testimony  respecting 
the  dissemination  which  this  teaching  enjoyed  in  Ger- 
many before  the  council."  Working  with  this  Gallican 
leaven  was  the  rationalizing  tendency  which  came  over 
from  Protestantism  and  deeply  penetrated  the  Catholic 
schools.  "It  would  be  easy  to  make  a  numerous  collec- 
tion of  genuinely  rationalistic  teachings  from  the  theo- 
logical writings  and  lectures  of  the  first  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  In  the  course  of  the  century  the 
Catholic  theology  sought  indeed  to  free  itself  from  that 
unchristian  spirit.  Still,  it  continued  to  suffer  from  the 
effects  of  the  distemper  beyond  the  middle  of  the  century, 
and  it  was  the  more  difficult  for  it  to  attain  to  a  com- 
plete cure  as  it  lacked  a  sound  philosophy,  which  is  the 
basis  of  theology."  In  the  interpretation  of  the  Scrip- 
tures large  dependence  was  placed  upon  Protestant 
science,  and  a  quite  inadequate  measure  of  attention  was 
given  to  dogmatics.  As  for  the  doctrine  of  papal  infalli- 

1  Cecconi,  Storia  del  Concilio  Vaticano,  II.  489. 


64  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

bility,  "at  the  time  when  the  summons  for  assembling 
the  Vatican  Council  was  issued,  it  was  denied  in  some 
universities  and  theological  institutions,  represented  in 
others  as  more  or  less  probable,  and  only  in  a  few  set 
forth  as  an  established  teaching.  Therefore  even  the 
clergy  had  for  the  most  part  only  an  obscure  and  inaccu- 
rate knowledge  of  it,  and  neither  understood  sufficiently 
the  evidences  upon  which  it  is  based  nor  were  in  condi- 
tion to  refute  objections  to  it.  In  the  religious  instruc- 
tion of  the  laity  it  was  touched  upon  only  as  a  matter  of 
controversy  among  theologians,  or  was  not  even  men- 
tioned, so  that  the  citizens  of  Kreuznach  in  an  address 
to  their  bishop  could  say  not  without  warrant  that  the 
doctrine  which  it  is  wished  to  define  had  been  entirely 
unknown  to  them  up  to  that  time."1  /  If  these  representa- 
tions of  the  Ultramontane  and  apologetic  historian  can 
be  trusted,  it  is  evident  that  papal  infallibility  even  in 
the  years  immediately  preceding  the  Vatican  Council  had 
very  scanty  recognition  in  the  common  religious  con- 
sciousness of  Catholic  Germany,  was  treated,  outside  of 
a  limited  sphere,  as  a  debatable  school  question,  and  to 
a  large  extent  in  scholarly  circles  was  squarely  repudiated 
^as  untenable. 

Relative  to  Switzerland  the  writer  just  cited  makes 
this  significant  statement:  "With  the  Swiss  the  charac- 
teristic bent  to  freedom,  and  the  disposition,  easily  ex- 
plained, to  carry  over  the  self-government  to  which  they 
are  accustomed  in  civil  life  to  the  domain  of  the  Church, 
gave  ground  for  expecting  that  the  opposition  to  the 
scheme  of  the  council,  which  threatened  to  increase  the 

1  Geschichte  des  vatikanischen  Konzils,  I.  153-155:  II.  259-261,  654. 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  65 

restriction  upon  freedom,  would  find  a  sharper  and  more 
open  expression  than  in  Germany."1  This  is  equivalent 
to  admitting  that  in  the  view  of  a  freedom-loving  people 
the  scheme  of  the  Vatican  Council  is  intrinsically  odious. 
That  it  was  utterly  distasteful  to  not  a  few  of  the  Swiss 
is  a  well-established  fact.  The  majority  of  their  bishops, 
it  is  true,  gave  it  their  sanction  in  the  council.  But  they 
only  partially  represented  their  constituents.  Many  of 
the  latter  joined  in  voicing  exceedingly  vigorous  declara- 
tions against  the  Vatican  project.  As  Mgr.  Agnozzi 
said  in  a  communication  to  Cardinal  Antonelli,  January 
28,  1870,  Dollinger  had  many  friends  and  adherents  of 
his  teaching  among  the  Swiss  clergy.2  Full  proof  of  this 
was  given  in  the  sequel.  The  "Old  Catholic"  movement, 
in  which  the  protest  against  the  transactions  of  the 
Vatican  Council  took  an  organized  form,  struck  its  roots 
more  deeply  into  Swiss  than  into  German  soil. 

As  respects  Roman  Catholics  in  Great  Britain,  a  very 
full  chain  of  evidence  supports  the  conclusion  that  up 
to  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  Ultramontane 
theories  had  next  to  no  recognized  standing  among  them. 
In  the  first  place,  we  have  the  evidence  furnished  by  a 
writing  entitled  "Roman  Catholic  Principles  in  Refer- 
ence to  God  and  the  King,"  which  went  through  thirty- 
five  editions  between  1748  and  1813.  Therein  we  read 
the  following  unambiguous  declaration :  "It  is  no  mat- 
ter of  faith  to  believe  that  the  pope  is  in  himself  infalli- 
ble, separated  from  the  Church,  even  in  expounding  the 
faith:  by  consequence  papal  definitions  or  decrees,  in 
whatever  form  pronounced,  taken  exclusively  from  a 

1  Granderath,  II.  661.  «  Ibid.,  II.  660. 


66  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

general  council,  or  universal  acceptance  of  the  Church, 
oblige  none  under  pain  of  heresy  to  an  interior  assent."1 

A  statement  quite  in  accord  with  that  of  the  widely 
circulated  writing  just  mentioned  was  made  by  Bishop 
Baines  in  1822.  "Bellarmine,"  he  wrote,  "and  some 
other  divines,  chiefly  Italians,  have  believed  the  pope  in- 
fallible, when  proposing  ex  cathedra  an  article  of  faith. 
But  in  England  or  Ireland  I  do  not  believe  that  any 
Catholic  maintains  the  infallibility  of  the  pope."2 

In  1825  James  Doyle  was  questioned  by  a  select  com- 
mittee appointed  to  inquire  into  the  state  of  Ireland.  To 
the  inquiry,  "Do  the  Catholic  clergy  insist  that  all  the 
bulls  of  the  pope  are  entitled  to  obedience?"  he  made  this 
reply:  "By  no  means.  The  pope  we  consider  as  the 
executive  authority  of  the  Catholic  Church;  and  when 
he  issues  a  bull,  enforcing  a  discipline,  already  settled 
by  a  general  council,  such  bull  is  entitled  to  respect.  But 
he  may  issue  bulls  which  would  regard  local  discipline  or 
other  matters  not  already  defined,  and  in  that  case  his 
bull  would  be  treated  by  us  in  such  manner  as  it  might 
seem  good  to  us."  An  examination  of  Daniel  Murray 
in  the  same  year  gave  occasion  to  these  inquiries  and 
responses :  "Quest.  Is  a  decree  of  the  pope  valid  with- 
out the  consent  of  the  council?  Ans.  A  decree  of  the 
pope  in  matters  of  doctrine  is  not  considered  binding  on 
Catholics,  if  it  have  not  the  consent  of  the  whole  Church, 
either  dispersed  or  assembled,  by  its  bishops  in  council. 
Quest.  Have  the  Irish  Catholic  bishops  adopted  or  re- 
jected what  are  called  the  Galilean  liberties?  Ans. 
Those  liberties  have  not  come  under  their  consideration 


1  Cited  by  Kenrick,  Concio  in  Concilio  Vaticano  Habenda  et  non  Habita, 
p.  46.  3  Cited  by  Gladstone,  Vaticanism,  p.  48. 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  67 

as  a  body.  The  Irish  Catholic  bishops  have  not,  there- 
fore, either  adopted  or  rejected  them.  They  have 
adopted,  however,  and  that  too  on  their  oaths,  the  lead- 
ing doctrines  which  the  Gallican  articles  contain,  that 
is,  the  doctrines  which  reject  the  deposing  power  of  the 
pope,  and  his  right  to  interfere  with  the  temporalities 
of  princes.  That  is  distinctly  recognized,  not  as  one  of 
the  Gallican  liberties,  but  as  a  doctrine  which  the  gospel 
teaches."1 

Keenan's  Catechism,  which  was  extensively  used  in 
Great  Britain  and  America  through  the  middle  part  of 
the  century,  asks  this  question :  "Must  not  Catholics  be- 
lieve the  pope  in  himself  infallible?"  The  reply  reads: 
"This  is  a  Protestant  invention;  it  is  no  article  of  the 
Catholic  faith;  no  decision  of  his  can  oblige,  under  pain 
of  heresy,  unless  it  be  received  and  enforced  by  the 
teaching  body — that  is,  by  the  bishops  of  the  Church."2 

The  extensive  currency  of  Gallican  sentiments  in  the 
first  part  of  the  century  was  very  distinctly  acknowledged 
by  Newman.  Referring  to  such  language  as  that  quoted 
from  Baines,  Doyle,  and  Murray,  he  said :  "We  must 
recollect  that  at  that  time  the  clergy,  both  of  Ireland  and 
England,  were  educated  in  Gallican  opinions.  They  took 
those  opinions  for  granted,  and  they  thought,  if  they 
went  so  far  as  to  ask  themselves  the  question,  that  the 
definition  of  papal  infallibility  was  simply  impossible."3 
This  statement  was  penned  a  half  decade  after  the 
Vatican  Council.  Several  years  before  the  council  New- 
man had  indicated  how  remote  he  was  from  Ultramon- 
tane zeal  by  saying  respecting  papal  infallibility,  "I  have 

1  Cited  by  Kenrick,  Concio,  pp.  89,  90. 
•Cited  by  Gladstone,  Vaticanism,  p.  125. 
•Letter  to  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  1875,  p.  13. 


68  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

even   thought   it   likely   to   be   true,    never   thought   it 
certain."1 

Referring  to  the  time  when  Newman  was  converted 
to  Romanism  (1845),  David  Lewis  testifies:  "In  those 
days  there  was  a  good  deal  of  Gallicanism  in  England, 
not  to  say  Jansenism,  and  the  English  college  in  Rome 
was  anything  but  Roman."2  Picturing  the  condition  of 
things  twenty  years  later  George  Talbot  wrote  from  the 
Vatican :  "Roman  principles  go  very  much  against  the 
grain  of  English  Catholics."3  Less  than  a  year  before 
Manning  expressed  the  conviction  that  from  various 
causes  nine  out  of  ten  among  English  Catholics  were 
going  wrong,  that  is,  as  he  undoubtedly  meant,  were  not 
acting  in  a  way  favorable  to  the  project  of  the  Ultra- 
montane party.4 

In  the  United  States  very  little  in  the  way  of  stanch 
Ultramontane  conviction  came  to  manifestation  before 
the  Vatican  Council.  As  late  as  1866  Spalding,  Arch- 
bishop of  Baltimore,  though  he  shared  in  that  order  of 
conviction  more  largely  than  many  of  his  colleagues  in 
the  episcopate,  and  expressed  himself  as  personally  in- 
clined to  the  conclusion  that  the  pope  is  infallible  when 
speaking  ex  cathedra,  still  declared  of  this  conclusion, 
"It  is  an  opinion,  for  all  this,  and  no  Catholic  would  ven- 
ture to  charge  the  great  Bossuet,  for  example,  with  being 
wanting  in  orthodoxy  for  denying  it,  while  he  so  power- 
fully and  eloquently  established  the  infallibility  of  the 
Church."5  That  many  of  the  bishops  in  the  United 

i  Letter  to  W.  G.  Ward,  Feb.  18,  1866,  cited  by  Purcell,  Life  of  Cardinal 
Manning,  II.  321,  322.  2  Purcell,  II.  307.  'Ibid.,  II.  267. 

4  Letter  of  Jan.  12,  1865,  cited  by  Wilfrid  Ward  in  the  volume  on  W.  G. 
Ward  and  the  Catholic  Revival,  pp.  187,  188. 

8  Lectures  on  the  Evidences  of  Catholicity,  pp.  263,  264. 


PAPAL  ABSOLUTISM  69 

States  and  Canada  were  concerned  to  keep  papal  infalli- 
bility from  being  lifted  above  the  plane  of  a  mere  opinion 
was  made  evident  by  the  act  of  twenty-four  of  them, 
January,  1870,  in  signing  a  request  to  the  pope  not  to 
introduce  the  definition  of  infallibility  to  the  council. 
Only  about  two  fifths  of  them,  it  is  true,  cared  to  push 
their  opposition  to  the  extent  of  rendering  a  decided  neg- 
ative when  the  question  came  to  a  vote.  But  in  giving 
their  signatures  to  the  petition  they  indicated  on  which 
side  their  preference  lay.  And  in  case  of  some  of  the 
most  prominent  among  them  it  is  evident  that  their  op- 
position to  the  definition  of  papal  infallibility  was  based 
on  something  deeper  than  mere  considerations  of  ex- 
pediency. Kenrick  of  .Saint  Louis  made  it  plain  that  he 
did  not  believe  in  the  dogma  by  attacking  both  the  scrip- 
tural and  patristic  supports  alleged  in  its  behalf.1  Pur  A 
cell  of  Cincinnati  gave  an  equally  distinct  token  of 
genuine  skepticism  in  making  use  of  these  words :  "Sev- 
eral of  us  believe  that  ecclesiastical  history,  the  history 
of  the  popes,  the  history  of  the  councils,  and  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  Church,  are  not  in  harmony  with  the  new 
dogma;  and  it  is  for  this  that  we  believe  that  it  is  very 
inopportune  to  wish  to  define,  as  of  faith,  an  opinion 
which  appears  to  us  a  novelty  in  the  faith,  that  seems  to 
us  to  be  without  solid  foundation  in  Scripture  and  tradi- 
tion; which,  it  appears  to  us,  is  contradicted  by  irref- 
ragable monuments."2 

\ 

The  review  makes  it  plain  that  the  absolutist  theory\ 
of  the  unrestricted  and  infallible  sovereignty  of  the  pope  \ 
held  through  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  in    I 

1  Concio  Habenda  et  non  Habita. 

1  Letter  to  the  Bishop  of  Orleans,  cited  by    R.  H.  Clarke,  Lives  of  the 
Deceased  Bishops,  III.  223,  224. 


70  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

'vast  sections  of  the  Church  no  better  rank  than  that  of 
a  school  opinion,  and  that  as  such  it  was  very  largely 
adjudged  to  be  unfounded  and  false.  The  possibility  of 
turning  the  challenged  opinion  into  authoritative  dogma 
lay  in  the  lack  of  vital  opposition  in  the  countries  least 
touched  by  modern  thought,  and  in  the  subservient 
attitude  toward  the  Roman  pontiff  of  a  crowd  of  de- 
\v  pendents. 

II. — BEGINNINGS  OF  AN  ANTI-GALLICAN  OR  ULTRA- 
MONTANE MOVEMENT  UNDER  DE  MAISTRE  AND 
OTHERS 

Somewhat  of  a  basis  for  Ultramontanism  was  pro- 
vided in  the  Napoleonic  reconstruction  of  the  Church  in 
France  as  effected  in  1801.  The  Gallican  standpoint,  it 
is  true,  came  to  view  in  the  concordat  which  was  pub- 
lished at  that  date,  and  was  strongly  asserted  in  the 
accompanying  "organic  articles."  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  scheme  of  reconstruction  gave  the  pope  an 
opportunity  to  magnify  his  lordship  over  the  French 
bishops.  In  order,  in  conformity  with  Napoleon's  plan, 
to  reduce  the  number  of  archbishoprics  and  bishoprics 
from  one  hundred  and  fifty-six  to  sixty,  he  required  the 
whole  body  of  prelates  to  hand  in  their  resignations,  and 
declared  those  deposed  who  failed  to  render  an  obedient 
response  within  a  very  limited  period.  This  was  a  tre- 
mendous exercise  of  papal  sovereignty.  Very  incisive 
protests  were  naturally  called  forth.  But,  inasmuch  as 
he  was  backed  up  by  the  irresistible  monarch,  the  pope 
was  able  to  carry  out  his  part  in  the  autocratic  transac- 
tion. A  practical  illustration  was  given  of  the  Ultramon- 
tane doctrine  relative  to  the  thorough  subordination  of 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  71 

the  episcopal  to  the  pontifical  rank.1  The  moral  effect, 
however,  of  the  performance  was  qualified  by  the  relation 
of  the  papal  to  the  imperial  agent.  We  may,  therefore, 
consider  another  feature  of  the  Napoleonic  settlement  as 
probably  rendering  the  larger  contribution  to  an  Ultra- 
montane movement.  In  that  settlement  the  lower  clergy 
were  left  in  a  very  dependent  relation  to  the  bishops. 
Accordingly,  a  motive  was  given  them  to  look  to  the 
sovereignty  of  the  pope  as  a  refuge.  Grievances  at  the 
hands  of  their  immediate  ecclesiastical  lords  inclined  them 
to  more  tolerant  views  of  the  high  assumptions  of  a 
distant  lord. 

It  was  not  long  after  the  Napoleonic  settlement  that 
the  distinctive  theories  of  Ultramontanism  began  to  be 
vigorously  championed.  Gifted  writers  took  the  pen  in 
their  behalf,  and  influential  treatises  were  put  in  circu- 
lation before  the  second  decade  of  the  century  had  passed. 
Foremost  among  these  writers  were  De  Maistre  and 
Lamennais.  The  name  of  De  Bonald  may  also  be  men-/ 
tioned  with  a  good  degree  of  propriety.  While  he  dia 
not  deal  largely  with  ecclesiastical  matters,  he  bestowed 
elaborate  attention  upon  points  of  view  which  could 
easily  be  given  a  very  effective  bearing  upon  ecclesiastical 
conceptions.  He  was  an  absolutist  in  his  governmental 
theories.  He  contended  that  the  universe  was  built  on  a 
monarchical  plan,  and  considered  that  a  non-monarchical 
government  would  be  a  strange  and  artificial  thing,  as 
clear  an  instance  of  the  infraction  of  natural  law  as 
would  appear  in  case  of  a  body  released  from  the  force 
of  gravitation.  Furthermore,  he  was  a  most  pronounced 
traditionalist.  He  conceived  the  race  to  be  substantially 

1  Friedrich,  Geschichte  des  vatikanischen  Konzils,  I.  34ff. 


72  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

destitute  of  the  power  of  invention.  Its  entire  furnishing 
— ideas,  language,  arts,  institutions,  doctrines — is  a 
contribution  from  without.  Primarily  it  was  bestowed 
by  God  upon  the  primitive  man,  and  from  him  has  been 
transmitted  through  the  successive  generations.  As  a 
procession  of  blind  men  by  taking  hold  of  hands  avail 
themselves  of  the  guidance  vouchsafed  to  the  one  at  the 
head  of  the  line,  so  through  the  medium  of  tradition  the 
race  is  connected  with  the  divinely  directed  progenitor, 
and  is  able  in  spite  of  its  intrinsic  blindness  to  walk 
securely.1  In  the  emphatic  assertion  of  such  premises 
De  Bonald  was  greatly  influenced  by  the  horror  with 
which  he  regarded  the  French  revolution. 

/  The  same  motive  was  decidedly  influential  with  De 
Maistre.  "The  French  revolution,"  he  wrote,  "resembles 
nothing  which  has  been  seen  in  past  times.  It  is  Satanic 
in  its  essence.  Never  will  it  be  totally  extinguished  ex- 
cept by  the  contrary  principle,  and  never  will  the  French 

V  resume  their  place  until  they  have  recognized  this  truth."2 
Since  the  Revolution  asserted  the  rights  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  claims  of  reason,  its  cure,  according 
to  the  above  statement,  must  be  sought  in  the  principle 
of  absolute  authority.  And  that  is  where  it  was  placed 
by  De  Maistre  in  reiterated  and  emphatic  declarations. 
In  his  theory  of  the  State  he  was  an  absolutist.  He  had 
no  tolerance  for  the  notion  of  a  divided  or  limited  sover- 
eignty. "All  government,"  he  says,  "is  absolute,  and  the 
moment  that  one  is  able  to  resist  it,  under  pretext  of 
error  or  injustice,  it  no  longer  exists."3 

What  is  thus  claimed  for  the  sovereign  within  the 

1  Faguet,  Politiques  et  Moralistes  du  Dix-neuvi&me  Si£cle,  premiere  series, 
pp.  yoff. 

2  Du  Pape,  edit,  of  1852,  I.  15.  s  Du  Pape,  I.  20. 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  73 

limits  of  the  individual  realm  is  claimed  for  the  pope  in 
the  wider  sphere  of  the  Church.  Indeed,  the  controlling 
purpose  of  the  celebrated  treatise  Du  Pape  (1819)  was 
manifestly  the  advocacy  of  the  claims  of  papal  absolu- 
tism. Its  leading  proposition  is  that  in  the  decisive  au- 
thority of  the  Roman  pontiff  lies  the  necessary  bond  of 
unity  and  guarantee  of  order  for  Christendom.  "It  is 
Christianity,"  writes  De  Maistre,  "which  has  formed  the 
European  monarchy,  marvel  too  little  admired.  But 
without  the  pope  there  is  no  veritable  Christianity;  with- 
out the  pope  the  divine  institution  loses  its  power,  its 
divine  character,  and  its  converting  force;  without  the 
pope  there  is  but  a  human  belief,  incapable  of  entering 
into  hearts  and  modifying  them,  so  as  to  make  man  sus- 
ceptible to  a  high  degree  of  knowledge,  morality,  and 
civilization.  All  sovereignty  whose  front  has  not  been 
touched  by  the  efficacious  finger  of  the  great  pontiff  will 
remain  always  inferior  to  others,  as  well  in  duration  as 
in  dignity  and  in  the  forms  of  its  government.  Every 
nation,  even  the  Christian,  which  has  not  felt  sufficiently 
the  formative  action  [of  the  pope]  will  likewise  remain 
everlastingly  below  the  others,  all  things  besides  being 
equal;  and  every  nation  that  becomes  separated  after 
receiving  the  universal  seal  will  feel  finally  that  it  lacks 
something,  and  will  be  brought  back  sooner  or  later  by 
reason  or  misfortune."1 

De  Maistre  speaks  of  the  infallibility  of  the  pope,  and 
evidently  supposes  that  there  is  some  sort  of  ground  for 
its  affirmation  in  divine  promise.  But  still  he  makes  it 
plain  that  for  him  the  practical  demand  for  finality  in 
papal  mandates  is  the  determining  reason  for  predicating 

1  Du  Pape,  I.  345,  346. 


74  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

infallibility.  He  says:  "Infallibility  in  the  spiritual 
order  and  sovereignty  in  the  temporal  order  are  two  per- 
fectly synonymous  words.  .  .  .  He  who  has  the  right 
to  say  to  the  pope  that  he  is  deceived  has,  on  the  same 
ground,  the  right  to  disobey  him,  a  course  which  would 
annihilate  the  supremacy  (or  infallibility)."1 

From  this  point  of  view  De  Maistre  is  thoroughly  in- 
tolerant of  the  Gallican  conception  of  the  superior  au- 
thority of  a  general  council.  That  conception  starts  one, 
he  maintains,  on  the  straight  road  to  a  dismemberment 
of  sovereignty.  "Once  admit  appeal  from  the  papal  de- 
crees, and  there  is  no  longer  government,  no  longer  unity, 
no  longer  a  visible  Church."2  The  Gallican  should  also 
remind  himself  that  the  superior  authority  to  which  he 
would  appeal  is  unsuited  to  existing  conditions.  "The 
world  has  become  too  great  for  general  councils,  which 
seem  to  have  been  made  for  the  youth  of  Christianity."3 

While  thus  placing  an  overwhelming  emphasis  on  the 
presence  of  a  living  organ  of  ecclesiastical  authority,  De 
Maistre  gave  a  passing  recognition  to  the  principle  of 
traditionalism  so  greatly  dwelt  upon  by  De  Bonald. 
"There  is  no  dogma,"  he  remarks,  "in  the  Catholic 
Church,  there  is  not  even  a  general  usage  pertaining  to 
the  higher  discipline,  which  has  not  its  roots  in  the  lowest 
depths  of  human  nature,  and  consequently  in  some  uni- 
versal opinion  more  or  less  altered  here  and  there,  but 
common  nevertheless,  in  its  principle,  to  all  peoples  in 
all  times."4 

In  arguing  for  his  theory  of  the  papal  monarchy  De 
Maistre  paid  some  attention  to  historical  data.  But  it 
is  quite  in  order  to  say  that  he  gave  no  adequate  con- 

>  Du  Pape,  I.  20-24.       *  Ibid.,  I.  25.       » Ibid.,  I.  42.       *  Ibid.,  I.  290. 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  75 

sideration  to  the  stones  of  stumbling,  and  indicated  a 
much  too  easy  'way  of  disposing  of  them.  If  we  find, 
he  contends,  the  general  record  of  the  popes  conformable 
to  the  high  office  ascribed  to  them,  then  we  may  discard 
the  margin  of  troublesome  facts.1  But  this  is  far  from 
legitimate  in  connection  with  so  precise  and  absolute  a 
proposition  as  that  which  makes  the  popes,  in  virtue  of 
their  office,  the  infallible  organs  of  ecclesiastical  authority. 
To  proceed  in  that  way  would  be  like  making  an  unquali- 
fied assertion  of  the  indefectibility  of  the  twelve  disciples, 
and  then  claiming  that  the  apostasy  of  Judas,  inasmuch 
as  he  was  only  one  twelfth  of  the  apostolic  college,  in  no 
wise  involved  a  contradiction  of  the  assertion. 

The  very  imperfect  historical  vision  of  this  protagonist 
of  Ultramontanism  has  thus  been  commented  upon  by 
a  friend  of  Montalembert :  "De  Maistre  has  everywhere 
seen  that  which  he  wished  to  see,  and  he  has  seen  it  ex- 
ceedingly well;  he  has  neglected  that  which  he  ought  to 
have  seen,  and  which,  in  fact,  he  did  see,  and  in  that  lay 
the  weakness  of  this  great  spirit."2  Maret's  judgment 
is  of  like  tenor.  Speaking  of  De  Maistre's  use  of  the 
record  of  the  councils,  he  says :  "He  proceeds  in  this 
examination  in  such  fashion  that  after  having  followed 
him  with  attention  one  asks  himself  if  he  had  really  read 
the  acts  of  the  councils,  of  which  he  speaks  with  a  mar- 
velous superficiality  (legerete)."3 

/  In  the  beginning  of  his  career  Lamennais  was  in  full 
/  agreement  with  the  maxims  of  De  Bonald  and  De 
i  Maistre.  His  ultimate  inclination  to  popular  sovereign- 

1  Du  Pape,  I.  120.          3  Baron  Eckstein,  cited  by  Friedrich,  I.  139. 
8  Du  Concile  G£n6ral  et  de  la  Paix  Religieuse,  II.  313. 


76  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

ty,  which  impelled  him  into  a  divergent  path,  did  not 
come  to  any  distinct  manifestation  in  his  earlier  writings. 
The  treatise  which  formed  his  most  notable  contribution 
to  Ultramontane  literature,  namely,  the  Essay  on  Indif- 
ference in  Matter  of  Religion,  the  first  volume  of  which 
was  issued  in  1817,  was  quite  conformable  in  its  main 
propositions  to  the  theories  of  contemporary  advocates 
of  absolutism.  What  distinguished  him  in  particular  was 
the  oratorical  skill  and  fervency  with  which  he  put  for- 
ward his  absolutist  creed. 

A  fundamental  proposition  of  Lamennais  is  that  truth, 
especially  religious  truth,  can  be  attained  only  by  reliance 
upon  authority  as  opposed  to  reliance  upon  individual 
reason.  With  characteristic  preference  for  unqualified 
antitheses  he  paints  the  contrast  between  these  two  meth- 
ods in  these  strong  terms :  "Two  doctrines  are  present  in 
the  world :  the  one  tends  to  unite  men,  and  the  other  to 
separate  them;  the  one  conserves  the  individuals  in  re- 
lating all  to  society,  the  other  destroys  society  in  carrying 
back  all  to  the  individual.  In  the  one  all  is  general,  the 
authority,  the  beliefs,  the  duties;  and  each  existing  only 
for  society  concurs  to  maintain  order  by  a  perfect  obe- 
dience of  the  reason,  of  the  heart,  and  of  the  senses  to 
an  invariable  law.  In  the  other  all  is  particular;  and  the 
duties  are  only  interests,  the  beliefs  only  opinions,  the 
authority  only  independence."1  The  latter  of  these  two 
doctrines,  which  Lamennais  regards  as  tending  by  force 
of  its  unholy  individualism  to  put  the  very  existence  of 
society  in  question,  is  represented  by  him  as  embodying 
the  standpoint  of  philosophy.  Accordingly,  his  attitude 
toward  philosophy  is  sharply  polemical.  "Philosophical 

1  Essai  sur  1' Indifference  en  Matiere  de  Religion,  tome  II,  pref.,  v-vii. 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  77 

doctrines,"  he  says,  "all  negative,  or,  what  is  the  same 
thing,  all  destructive,  have  for  general  principle  the 
sovereignty  of  man.  The  man  who  declares  himself 
sovereign  puts  himself,  by  that  very  act,  in  revolt  against 
God  and  against  all  power  established  by  God.  Now, 
he  who  revolts  hates ;  hatred  is  therefore  the  general  sen- 
timent which  philosophical  doctrines  engender."1  "The 
great  errors  of  the  spirit  were  almost  unknown  in  the 
world  before  the  rise  of  Greek  philosophy.  It  is  that 
which  caused  them  to  spring  up  by  substituting  the  prin- 
ciple of  particular  examination  for  that  of  faith."2  "The 
false  systems  of  philosophy  adopted  successively  since 
Aristotle,  the  influence  of  which  has  reached  even  into 
Christian  schools,  have  all  a  common  tendency.  They 
cast  the  mind  into  vagueness,  as  substituting  pure  ab- 
stractions for  the  reality  of  things.  Never  considering 
aught  but  the  isolated  man,  and  thus  depriving  him  of 
the  support  of  tradition,  they  oblige  him  to  seek  in  him- 
self all  the  necessary  truths,  and  the  certainty  of  these 
truths,  attributing  to  the  reason  of  each  individual  the 
rights  of  the  universal  reason,  of  the  divine  reason 
itself,  and  setting  free  from  all  dependence  as  from  all 
authority."3 

Another  proposition  which  is  fundamental  to  the  re- 
ligious system  of  Lamennais  is  that  the  truth  which  has 
the  unqualified  right  to  command  the  individual  is  mani- 
fested to  successive  generations  through  the  medium  of 
tradition,  and  that  the  content  of  the  authoritative  tradi- 
tion is  dictated  by  the  general  as  opposed  to  the  indi- 
vidual reason.  The  following  citations  may  serve  to 
illustrate  the  way  in  which  this  ever-recurring  proposi- 
x  Essai  sur  1'Indiflference,  II,  pref.,  xv.  «  Ibid.,  III.  45.  •  Ibid.,  III.  4. 


78  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

tion  is  enforced:  "There  exists  necessarily,  for  all  intel- 
ligences, an  order  of  truths  or  knowledge  primitively 
revealed,  that  is  to  say,  received  originally  from  God, 
as  the  condition  of  life,  or  rather  as  the  life  itself;  and 
these  truths  of  faith  are  the  immovable  foundation  of  all 
spirits,  the  bond  of  their  society,  and  the  reason  of  their 
existence."1  "The  first  man  received  these  primary 
truths  upon  the  testimony  of  God,  the  supreme  reason, 
and  they  are  preserved  among  men,  being  perfectly  mani- 
fested by  the  universal  testimony  or  expression  of  the 
general  reason."2  "Religion  is  but  the  indissoluble  en- 
chainment of  testimonies  which  reach  back  and  mount 
up  to  God."3  "The  certitude  increases  for  us  in  propor- 
tion to  the  concert  and  the  number  of  authorities."4 
"To  appeal  from  authority  to  reason,  from  the  common 
understanding  to  the  private  understanding,  is  to  violate 
the  fundamental  law  of  reason  itself,  is  to  unsettle  the 
moral  world,  is  to  constitute  the  empire  of  universal 
skepticism,  and  to  excavate  an  abyss  where  all  truths,  all 
beliefs,  will  necessarily  come  to  be  engulfed."5  "The 
general  reason  cannot  err  or  fail  to  attain  its  end.  .  .  . 
It  is  not  so  with  the  individual  reason,  and  one  sees  why : 
infallibility  is  not  necessary  to  it,  since  it  is  always  able, 
when  it  makes  a  slip,  to  rectify  its  errors  by  consulting 
the  general  reason."6 

In  his  stress  upon  the  notion  that  the  common  reason 
of  mankind  witnesses  to  the  essential  content  of  the  true 
religion,  which  was  delivered  primarily  by  God  to  the 
head  of  the  race,  Lamennais  experienced  a  strong  motive 
to  assume  the  recognition  of  that  content  even  among 


»  Essai,  II.  77.  *  Ibid.,  II.  94.         »  Ibid.,  IV.  85  «  Ibid.,  ILaj. 

•  Ibid.,  II.  43.  •  Ibid.,  II.  91,  92. 


non-Jewish  and  non-Christian  peoples.  We  find  with 
him,  in  fact,  very  sweeping  statements  on  this  point. 
"In  vain,"  he  says,  "will  one  bring  up  the  existence  of 
paganism,  in  order  to  show  that  the  general  reason  is 
able  to  err.  We  shall  prove  that  all  of  the  general  found 
in  paganism  is  true,  that  all  the  false  which  it  included 
was  of  the  nature  of  local  superstitions  and  errors  of  the 
particular  reason."1  Again,  speaking  of  the  basal  truths 
contained  in  the  primitive  revelation,  he  remarks :  "They 
are  the  same  with  all  peoples,  and  vary  only  by  the  de- 
gree of  their  development.  Some  see  more,  others  less, 
but  all  see  without  exception,  and  they  see  but  that  which 
has  been  everywhere,  that  which  has  been  and  always 
will  be  seen  by  all  men."2  "Turn  back  toward  the  first 
ages  of  the  world;  in  the  midst  of  local  and  transient 
errors  you  will  see  always  the  same  beliefs,  those  which 
are  the  foundation  of  ours,  spread  universally;  and  at 
whatever  epoch  you  might  wish  to  locate  their  invention, 
history  will  contradict  you."3 

In  order  to  make  the  foregoing  propositions  serve  a 
Catholic  purpose,  Lamennais  added  the  declaration  that 
the  truths  delivered  in  the  original  revelation  and  recog- 
nized by  the  common  reason  passed  over  in  their  perfec- 
tion into  Christianity,  and  that  within  the  Christian 
sphere  the  Catholic  Church  is  the  one  authoritative  wit- 
ness to  these  truths  and  the  infallible  expositor  of  them. 
There  is,  he  contended,  no  breach  of  continuity  in  the 
one  universal  religion.  "Christianity  before  Jesus  Christ 
was  the  general  reason  manifested  by  the  testimony  of 
the  human  race.  Christianity  since  Jesus  Christ  is  the 
general  reason  manifested  by  the  testimony  of  the 

»  Essai,  II.  pref..  Ixxiv.  *  Ibid.,  II.  77.  »  Ibid.,  III.  n. 


8o  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

Church."1  "The  Catholic  Church  is  the  sole  religious 
society  which  binds  the  present  to  the  past  upon  which 
it  supports  itself;  the  sole  which  has  succeeded  and  has 
not  commenced ;  the  sole  which  has  never  varied ;  the  sole 
which  has  a  symbol  or  exercises  the  right  to  command 
spirits;  the  only  one  which  promises  certitude,  since  it 
alone  claims  infallibility.  Outside  of  it  one  finds  but  the 
absence  of  authority,  absence  of  law,  absence  of  religion, 
in  a  word,  but  the  individual  reason  and  its  opinions, 
its  contradictions,  its  errors."2  As  respects  the  infallible 
authority  attributed  to  the  Church,  Lamennais  made  it 
evident  that  he  considered  the  pope  to  be  its  superior 
organ.  His  opinion  of  Gallicanism  was  no  more  favor- 
able than  that  expressed  by  De  Maistre. 

The  doctrinaire  character  of  the  above  construction  is 
quite  obvious.  In  connection  with  each  of  his  main 
propositions  Lamennais  runs  into  exaggeration  and  ar- 
bitrary assumption.  It  is  true  enough,  doubtless,  that 
the  general  reason  affords  a  valuable  basis  of  conviction ; 
but  that  the  general  reason  is  infallible,  outside  of  a  very 
limited  sphere,  or  that  it  is  sure  to  be  right  as  against 
the  individual  reason,  is  not  made  evident  by  our  apolo- 
gist. A  fallible  reason  in  each  of  a  multitude  of  indi- 
viduals does  not  become  infallible  by  being  taken  col- 
lectively; and,  if  the  reference  be  made  to  tradition,  it  is 
perfectly  conceivable  that  the  reliable  witnesses  to  it 
should  be,  at  a  particular  stage,  a  select  minority  rather 
than  an  overwhelming  majority.  Moreover,  it  is  the 
plain  testimony  of  history  that  individual  initiative,  the 
exceptional  thinking  of  some  gifted  personality,  whose 
insight  has  reached  beyond  that  of  the  great  mass,  has 

»  Essai,  II,  pref.,  Ixviii,  Ixix.  *  Ibid.,  III.  35,  36, 


PAPAL  ABSOLUTISM  81 

been  again  and  again  the  efficient  cause  of  intellectual 
clarification  and  of  moral  and  religious  uplift.  The  gen- 
eral reason,  always  right,  and  always  like  to  itself,  is  an 
unhistoric  fiction,  when  taken  in  the  broad  sense  of 
Lamennais.  And  this  is  as  much  as  saying  that  his  rep- 
resentation of  a  primitive  revelation  and  of  its  transmis- 
sion among  all  peoples  is  overdrawn  to  the  point  of  being 
fanciful  and  untenable.  The  representation  cannot 
stand  in  sight  of  a  full  and  impartial  review  of  history. 
The  great  literary  prophets  of  Israel  reached  conceptions 
which  were  above  the  plane  even  of  the  most  enlightened 
spirits  of  the  age  of  the  Judges.  The  apostles  gained 
points  of  view  which  were  beyond  the  horizon  of  the 
prophets.  All  great  peoples,  even  the  most  favored,  have 
needed  a  better  light  than  that  which  shone  upon  their 
early  pathways.  Race  experience  under  divine  tuition 
and  guidance  has  manifestly  accomplished  far  more  than 
Lamennais  places  to  its  credit.  He  gives  plausibility  to 
his  propositions  only  by  making  a  one-sided  inventory  of 
facts.  Especially  unwarrantable  is  his  shift  to  make  it 
appear  that  Roman  Catholic  dogmas  are  none  other  than 
the  truths  to  which  the  common  reason  has  always  given 
consent,  and  that  consequently  all  deniers  of  those  dog- 
mas are  guilty  of  a  species  of  insane  individualism,  an 
anarchistic  revolt  against  the  essential  bond  of  social 
unity.  Take  Roman  Catholic  dogmas,  strip  off  every- 
thing which  has  not  been  asserted  by  the  common  reason 
of  the  race  through  successive  generations,  and  what 
would  be  left  ?  A  modest  list  of  truths  comprising  a  por- 
tion of  those  which  have  sometimes  been  classed  under 
the  head  of  "natural  religion."  What  has  the  common 
reason  of  the  race  known  respecting  scores  of  dogmatic 


8a  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

specifications  which  have  been  imposed  under  anathema 
— specifications  on  the  mysteries  of  the  Godhead,  on 
original  sin,  on  the  work  of  grace,  and  on  the  sacra- 
ments? Nothing  at  all.  It  is  only  by  a  flight  through 
mid-air  that  Lamennais  gets  from  the  stock  of  truths 
asserted  by  the  common  reason  to  the  complex  system  of 
Roman  Catholic  dogmas.  There  is  no  other  way  to  cross 
the  abyss  which  lies  between  the  two. 

It  may  be  noticed  that  there  is  a  strain  in  the  effusions 
of  this  champion  of  high  ecclesiasticism  which  might 
very  naturally  cause  some  uneasiness  to  Roman  Catholic 
minds,  especially  to  those  penetrated  with  a  sense  of 
official  dignity.  This  stress  upon  the  function  of  the 
common  reason — might  it  not  be  regarded  as  logically 
tending  to  push  into  the  background  the  conception  of 
a  priestly  hierarchy  as  a  medium  of  enlightenment  and 
guidance?  In  truth,  the  suspicion  that  such  was  the 
case  began  to  insinuate  itself.  Thus,  in  spite  of  the  ac- 
claim with  which  the  writings  of  Lamennais  were  re- 
ceived, his  position  had  already  been  compromised  in 
some  measure  when  a  new  phase  in  his  career  precipitated 
a  crisis. 

The  new  phase  consisted  in  the  advocacy  of  a  revised 
conception  of  the  State  and  of  the  proper  relation  be- 
tween Church  and  State.  An  experience  of  censure  at 
the  hands  of  the  civil  authority,  on  the  score  of  some 
obnoxious  points  in  his  Ultramontane  teaching,  tended 
to  disaffect  him  toward  the  existing  form  of  government. 
Moreover,  the  stress  which  he  came  to  place  upon  the 
function  of  the  general  reason  was  intrinsically  favorable 
to  the  notion  of  popular  sovereignty.  Thus  it  resulted 
that  he  took  up  that  notion  and  combined  it  with  his  high 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  83 

ecclesiastical  theory.  A  democratic  constitution  of  the 
State  conjoined  with  a  theocratic  constitution  of  the 
Church  became  his  ideal.  At  the  same  time,  he  con- 
cluded that  the  proper  independence  of  spiritual  society 
requires  the  separation  of  Church  and  State,  and  on  this 
basis  he  urged  that  the  Church  ought  to  reconcile  itself 
to  a  total  withdrawal  of  the  contributions  made  by  the 
State  to  the  support  of  worship.  Such  were  the  views 
which  became  the  staple  of  his  addresses  to  the  public 
by  the  year  1830.  They  held  a  conspicuous  place  in  the 
columns  of  the  periodical  entitled  the  Avenir,  which 
served  as  the  organ  of  Lamennais  and  his  associates 
from  October,  1830,  to  the  same  month  in  the  following 
year.  A  longer  life  for  the  periodical  was  made  impossi- 
ble by  the  opposition  which  arose.  Lamennais  appealed 
his  case  to  Rome,  and  went  thither  in  person.  Gregory 
XVI  rendered  his  decision  in  the  encyclical  Mirari  vos 
(1832).  It  amounted  to  an  unequivocal  condemnation 
of  the  scheme  advocated  in  the  Avenir.  Lamennais 
made  his  submission ;  but  it  was  not  deemed  satisfactory ; 
and  as  he  continued  to  write  in  a  strain  badly  conformed 
to  the  model  of  the  papal  encyclical,  he  was  proscribed, 
and  ceased  to  rate  himself  as  a  Catholic.1 

The  observations  made  by  Lamennais  in  Rome,  while 
he  was  waiting  for  a  decision  on  the  merits  of  his  teach- 
ing, may  have  had  some  effect  in  disinclining  him  to 
work  longer  for  the  Ultramontane  project  of  bending  the 
neck  of  the  world  under  Roman  rule.  At  any  rate, 
shortly  after  his  sojourn  he  spoke  very  bitterly  of  what 
he  saw  in  the  ecclesiastical  metropolis.  Referring  to 


1  Faguet,    Politiques   et   Moralistes   du   Dix-neuvi&me  Siecle,   deuxifcme 
s&ie;  Boutard,  Lamennais,  sa  Vie  et  ses  Doctrines. 


84  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

the  pope  and  his  surroundings,  he  said:  "Imagine  to 
yourself  an  old  man  surrounded  by  men,  many  of  them 
tonsured,  who  manage  his  affairs ;  men  to  whom  religion 
is  as  indifferent  as  it  is  to  all  the  cabinets  of  Europe — 
ambitious,  covetous,  avaricious,  blind  and  infatuated  as 
the  eunuchs  of  the  lower  empire.  Such  is  the  govern- 
ment of  this  country,  such  are  the  men  who  have  every- 
thing in  their  hands,  and  who  daily  sacrifice  the  Church 
to  the  vilest  and  the  most  vainly  conceived  of  their  tem- 
poral affairs.  ...  I  went  to  Rome,  and  I  beheld  there 
the  foulest  cesspool  which  has  ever  sullied  the  eyes  of 
man.  The  vast  drain  of  the  Tarquins  would  be  too  nar- 
row to  give  passage  to  so  much  uncleanness.  There  is 
no  god  there  but  interest."1 

Among  those  who  looked  to  Lamennais  as  their  chief 
in  the  years  immediately  preceding  the  rebuff  which  was 
administered  by  the  encyclical  of  Gregory  XVI,  two 
young  men,  Lacordaire  and  Montalembert,  held  the  most 
conspicuous  place.  Disengaging  themselves  from  their 
former  leader,  these  gifted  persons  continued  to  render 
efficient  service  to  the  Ultramontane  cause  in  France. 
For  a  season  they  did  not  disdain  to  work  in  association 
with  such  intemperate  partisans  as  Veuillot  and  Gaume. 
But  after  the  middle  of  the  century  they  began  to  take  a 
distinct  course,  and  were  regarded  as  representing  the 
moderate  wing  of  the  party  with  which  they  had  been 
affiliated.  Ultimately,  Montalembert,  who  lived  to  wit- 
ness a  part  of  the  proceedings  of  the  Vatican  Council, 
became  so  far  separated  in  sympathy  and  conviction  from 
those  who  were  pushing  forward  an  extreme  type  of 


1  Cited  by  Gibson,  The  Abb£  de  Lamennais  and  the  Liberal  Movement 
in  France,  1896,  pp.  205,  aai. 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  85 

Ultramontanism  to  the  goal  of  formal  ratification  that 
he  came  to  be  rated  among  Catholic  liberals.  The  ad- 
dress which  he  delivered  at  Malines  in  1863  contained 
such  an  outspoken  plea  for  liberal  principles  that  not  a 
few  suspected  that  Pius  IX  had  it  specially  in  view  in 
issuing  the  reactionary  Syllabus  of  Errors.1  The  sus- 
picion may  not  have  been  very  well  founded,  but  it  did 
not  misrepresent  the  variance  which,  from  that  time, 
existed  between  Montalembert  and  the  party  which 
seconded  the  absolutist  scheme  of  Pius  IX.  He  disliked 
the  temper  manifested  by  that  party,  and  found  therein 
a  token  that  the  elevation  of  Ultramontane  tenets  to  the 
rank  of  dogma  would  furnish  a  basis  for  ecclesiastical 
despotism.  Accordingly,  he  set  himself  against  the 
Vatican  scheme,  and  denounced  it  in  words  of  fiery  in- 
dignation. In  a  letter  to  Dollinger,  November,  1869, 
he  spoke  of  the  "abyss  of  idolatry"  into  which  the  French 
clergy  had  fallen,  and  just  before  his  death  in  the  follow- 
ing March  he  employed  his  failing  strength  in  a  protest 
against  the  "idolatrous  undertaking"  which  was  being 
prosecuted  in  Rome.2 

The  rise  and  progress  of  the  Ultramontane  party  in 
France  was  specially  indebted  to  the  three  men  whose 
work  has  been  sketched,  to  De  Maistre,  Lamennais,  and 
Montalembert.  Of  these  De  Maistre  died  very  soon 
after  the  publication  of  the  book  which  gave  expression 
to  the  Ultramontane  creed.  Whether  a  disillusionment 
would  have  been  wrought  in  his  case,  had  he  lived  to 
gain  the  benefit  of  a  wider  observation  and  to  get  farther 
away  from  the  abhorred  spectacle  of  the  French  revolu- / 

1  Leroy-Beaulieu,  Les  Catholiques  Lib£raux,  1885,  pp.  192-195. 

2  Granderath,  Geschichte  des  vatikanischen  Konzils,  I.  283;  II.  576. 


86  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

'lion,  cannot,  of  course,  be  determined.  But  we  have  the 
fact  that  the  other  two  members  of  this  celebrated  list 
ended  at  a  point  remote  from  the  distinctive  creed  of 
Ultramontanism.  They  were  led  to  repudiate  the  work 
of  their  own  hands.  They  could  not,  however,  annul 
the  results.  The  possibility  of  the  Vatican  Council 
rested  in  no  small  degree  upon  what  they  had  done  to 
undermine  the  dominion  of  Gallican  traditions  in  France. 

III. — ULTRAMONTANE  PROPAGANDISM  AS  CARRIED  ON 
BY  THE  PAPACY  AND  ITS  ALLIES  UP  TO  THE 
VATICAN  COUNCIL 

/  The  tendency  toward  Ultramontanism  which  was  fos- 
tered by  the  reaction  against  the  French  revolution  was 
energetically  and  persistently  seconded  at  Rome.  By 
every  practical  expedient  that  was  offered  to  their  hands 
the  popes  and  their  agents  wrought  for  the  suppression 
of  Gallican  principles  and  for  the  promulgation  of  their 
absolutist  creed. 
S  Among  these  expedients  a  notable  function  was  ful- 

/  filled  by  the  revision  or  condemnation  of  writings  that 
entered  prominently  into  religious  education  or  touched 

\  upon  the  theme  of  papal  prerogatives.  In  France  the 
phraseology  of  the  catechisms  was  made  by  degrees 
agreeable  to  Ultramontane  presuppositions.  "Roman" 
was  sometimes  substituted  for  "Catholic."  The  state- 
ment that  after  Jesus  Christ  the  apostles  were  the  founda- 
tion of  the  Church  was  changed  into  the  declaration  that 
Peter  and  his  successors  constitute  the  foundation.  The 
headship  of  the  pope  was  brought  to  a  more  definite  ex- 
pression than  had  formerly  been  in  use,  and  occasionally 


. 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  87 

toward  the  middle  of  the  century  his  infallibility  was 
rather  plainly  indicated.  A  like  procedure  was  exempli- 
fied to  a  considerable  extent  in  Germany.  While  thus 
a  Roman  color  was  being  given  to  the  catechisms,  an 
equivalent  change  was  wrought  in  the  liturgy.  By  a 
combination  of  zealous  Ultramontanists  with  the  pope 
the  liturgy  which  had  been  current  in  France  was  finally 
put  aside  in  favor  of  the  Roman.  Effective  work  was 
also  done  to  bring  the  manuals  of  theology  and  other 
works  used  by  the  clergy  into  line.  The  hand  of  the 
reviser  was  set  to  work  upon  passages  that  gave 
offense  to  Ultramontane  tastes.  In  this  way  Bouvier's 
Theology  underwent  a  very  decided  transformation. 
A  beginning  was  made  toward  redeeming  Bailly's  Theol- 
ogy from  its  Gallicanism  by  a  like  process.  But  the 
process  was  not  deemed  to  be  altogether  adequate  in  this 
instance,  and  so  in  1853  this  long-honored  manual  was 
put  into  the  Index  of  Prohibited  Writings.  The 
like  fate  had  befallen  the  Manual  of  Canon  Law  by 
Luqueux  in  1851,  and  Guettee's  History  of  the  Church 
of  France  in  1852.  In  the  condemnatory  sentence 
which  overtook  the  writings  of  several  distinguished 
German  Catholics,  namely,  those  of  Hermes  in  1835, 
those  of  Giinther  in  1857,  and  those  of  Frohscham- 
mer  in  1862,  the  ends  of  Ultramontane  propagandism 
may  not  have  been  the  sole  motive;  but  still  it  is  true 
that  the  instigation  to  condemnation  came  from  the 
party  specially  connected  with  that  order  of  propagan- 
dism. The  responsibility  undoubtedly  lay  in  the  same 
quarter  for  the  proscription,  in  1849,  °f  Hirscher's  book 
on  the  Ecclesiastical  Conditions  of  the  Present.  The  first 
book  to  challenge  the  infallibilist  project  of  the  approach- 


88  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

ing  Vatican  Council — that  of  Renouf1 — was  placed  in 
the  Index  in  January,  1869,  and  in  November  of  the 
same  year  Bellinger's  powerful  polemic  against  papal 
infallibility  was  also  consigned  to  the  proscribed  list.2 
Meanwhile  by  the  exercise  of  influence  upon  provincial 
and  plenary  councils,  or  by  doctoring  their  decrees  prior 
to  publication,  the  pope  was  able  to  accomplish  not  a 
little  for  the  positive  commendation  of  infallibilist  tenets.3 
What  has  been  said  is  enough  to  show  that  through 
the  whole  middle  part  of  the  century  a  most  glaring 
lesson  was  given  as  to  the  direction  of  papal  hostility  and 
of  papal  favor.  In  the  face  of  those  lessons  aspirants  for 
ecclesiastical  preferment  could  not  fail  to  see  what  course 
they  must  take  in  order  to  gain  the  benefit  of  the  enor- 
mous power  exercised  by  the  pope  over  the  filling  of 
official  positions.  And  more  direct  instructions  on  this 
point  than  those  contained  in  the  events  just  narrated 
were  afforded.  >  In  dealing  with  persons  and  parties  the 

!.oman  pontiff  took  pains  to  advertise  his  purpose  to 
recognize  in  serviceability  to  the  scheme  of  Ultramon- 
tane propagandism  the  maximum  claim  to  patronage. 
,An  illustration  was  given  in  connection  with  an  Irish 
appointment.  The  primate  of  Armagh  died  in  1849. 

'In  due  time,  as  usual,  the  names  of  three  approved  can- 
didates were  forwarded  to  Italy.  But  to  the  astonishment 
of  the  clergy,  all  the  three  were  set  aside,  and  Paul 
Cullen,  rector  of  the  Irish  College  in  Rome,  was  ad- 

1  The  Condemnation  of  Pope  Honorius,  1868. 

2  The  book,  based  on  articles  which  had  appeared  shortly  before  in  the 
Allgemeine  Zeitung,  was  issued  under  the  title,  Der  Papst  und  das  Concil, 
von  Janus. 

3  On  the  matter  of  the  paragraph  see  Michaud,  De  la  Falsification  des 
Cat£chimes  Francais  et  des  Manuels  de  Theologie;  Friedrich,   Geschichte 
des    vatikanischen     Konzils,    Vol.    I;  Lichtenberger,    History   of    German 
Theology  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  pp   5875. 


PAPAL  ABSOLUTISM  89 

vanced  to  the  archiepiscopal  chair."1  What  dictated  this 
arbitrary  proceeding?  One  can  answer  without  any  re- 
sort to  arts  of  divination.  According  to  the  judgment 
of  the  pope  there  was  need  of  Ultramontane  propagan- 
dism  in  Ireland,  and  Paul  Cullen  was  considered  a  suit- 
able instrument  for  carrying  it  forward.  A  subsequent 
transaction  in  connection  with  the  archbishopric  of 
Westminster  makes  an  equally  scanty  demand  for  a 
skilled  interpreter.  In  1862  Dr.  Errington,  the  coadju- 
tor of  the  incumbent,  Cardinal  Wiseman,  and  his  natural 
successor,  was  required  by  pontifical  fiat  to  resign.  As 
a  Roman  Catholic  historian  remarks:  "The  removal  of 
Dr.  Errington  by  the  supreme  act  of  the  pope  was  a 
stretch  of  papal  authority  not  easily  forgotten  on  either 
side.  It  was  in  truth  what  Pope  Pius  IX  called  it,  'a 
coup  d'etat  of  the  Lord  God.'  "2  Three  years  after  the 
coup  d'etat  a  most  appropriate  supplement  was  furnished. 
On  the  death  of  Wiseman  the  names  of  three  candidates 
for  the  vacant  see  were  recommended  by  the  chapter  to 
the  consideration  of  Rome.  All  three  were  set  aside, 
and  by  the  sovereign  act  of  the  pope  Manning  was  made 
archbishop  of  Westminster.  In  this  case  no  doubt  the 
intrigues  of  the  appointee  and  of  his  agent  at  the  Vatican 
were  a  very  potent  factor.  But  the  Ultramontane  motive 
is  also  perfectly  manifest.  Errington  was  thrust  aside 
because  he  was  understood  to  harbor  liberal  and  mod- 
erate views.  Manning  was  placed  in  the  seat  of  authority 
because  he  could  be  trusted  to  promulgate  the  creed  of 
papal  absolutism  without  apology  and  without  excessive 
deference  to  scruples  as  respects  methods.  Such  in- 


1  Killen,  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Ireland,  1875,  II.  507. 
1  Purcell,  Life  of  Manning,  II.  95. 


90  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

stances  were  illuminating  as  to  what  might  be  expected 
in  the  future  administration  of  the  Church.  It  was  only 
a  consistent  chapter  in  the  history  of  papal  patronage 
which  was  written  when  it  came  to  be  recorded  that  nine 
of  those  who  had  served  on  the  dogmatic  commission  of 
the  Vatican  Council  had  been  elevated  to  the  dignity  of 
cardinals.1 

/resides  serving  the  Ultramontane  cause  by  the  promo- 
tion of  individuals,  papal  patronage  helped  forward  that 
/cause  by  bestowing  special  marks  of  favor  upon  period- 
i  icals.  Pius  IX  was  closely  associated  with  the  Jesuits 
in  1850  in  starting  the  publication  of  the  exceedingly 
potent  organ  of  high  ecclesiasticism,  the  Civilta  Cattolica ; 
and  in  1866  he  took  pains  to  emphasize  his  appreciation 
of  this  stalwart  journal  by  constituting  its  writers  a  col- 
lege with  special  privileges.2  In  another  quarter  he  gave 
a  token  of  his  regard  for  Ultramontane  journalism, 
which,  if  less  conspicuous,  was  not  less  significant,  inas- 
much as  the  object  of  the  manifested  regard  seems  to 
have  been  of  singularly  scanty  merits  outside  of  the  in- 
clination and  the  effort  to  consummate  a  practical  deifica- 
tion of  the  pope.  A  Roman  Catholic  writer  who,  in 
virtue  of  his  relations,  ought  to  have  been  able  to  make 
a  just  estimate  of  the  noted  captains  in  the  Ultramontane 
ranks  proffers  this  description  of  the  party  in  question : 
"An  intolerant  and  turbulent  faction  of  Catholics  in 
France,  headed  by  Veuillot  and  the  Univers,  put  their 
own  extravagant  interpretation  on  the  Syllabus  of 
Errors,  and  made  use  of  it  to  assail  and  to  calumniate 
with  the  most  passionate  rhetoric  and  bitterest  abuse 


1  Friedrich,  III.  337. 

2  Cecconi,  Storia  del  Concilio  Vaticano,  II.  389-394. 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  91 

such  eminent  and  zealous  Catholics  as  Mgr.  Dupanloup, 
the  bishop  of  Orleans;  Montalembert,  the  recognized 
champion  of  the  Church;  Lacordaire,  Falloux — every 
Catholic,  in  a  word,  who  resented  the  dictation  of  a  knot 
of  fanatics."1  Surely  the  ringleader  of  a  "knot  of  fana- 
tics" had  no  special  claim  on  pontifical  favor.  Never- 
theless we  have  the  record  that  it  was  given  in  a  very 
practical  form  at  the  time  when  the  government  laid  its 
hand  on  the  organ  of  the  wordy  agitator.  "On  the  sup- 
pression of  his  paper,"  says  Purcell,  "Pope  Pius  IX  sent 
a  handsome  sum  of  money  to  M.  Veuillot."  Evidently 
in  the  view  of  the  pontiff  Ultramontane  zeal  was  the 
thing  supremely  deserving. 

Specimens  of  pontifical  patronage  like  these  may 
rightly  receive  no  small  degree  of  emphasis  when  one  is 
considering  the  means  by  which  the  Vatican  project  was 
carried  forward  to  a  triumphant  issue.  The  bishops  as  a 
body  would  have  needed  to  be  deeply  imbued  with  a 
spirit  of  independence  and  of  superiority  to  all  earthly 
ambitions,  in  order  to  escape  the  temptation  to  shrink 
from  open  opposition  to  the  potentate  upon  whose  favor 
so  much  depended,  not  to  say,  in  order  to  repress  the  dis- 
position to  stimulate  his  good  will  by  a  show  of  ready 
acquiescence  in  his  designs.  , 

A  further  means  which  was  utilized  in  behalf  of  the\ 
scheme  of  papal  autocracy  was  the  insinuation  of  a  re-  \ 
vised  theory  of  tradition  or  of  the  satisfactory  proofs  of  I 
the   real   existence   of   a   valid  tradition.     The   earlier/ 
theologians  proceeded  on  the  supposition  that  a  substan- 
tial traditionary  basis  could  not  be  claimed  in  behalf  of 
a  tenet  for  which  a  chain  of  patristic  testimonies,  reach- 

1  Purcell,  Life  of  Manning,  II.  273. 


92  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

ing  back  close  to  the  apostolic  age,  could  not  be  produced. 
This  was  evidently  a  normal  supposition  in  connection 
with  the  commonly  accepted  maxim  that  the  whole  de- 
posit of  faith  was  with  the  apostles,  so  that  the  introduc- 
tion of  a  dogma  unknown  to  them  would  be  nothing  less 
than  a  specimen  of  rashness  and  usurpation.  But  this 
sober  interpretation  of  the  meaning  and  scope  of  tradi- 
tion was  not  congenially  related  to  the  dogmatic  scheme 
toward  the  installation  of  which  the  pontificate  of  Pius 
IX  was  directed.  Accordingly,  as  demand  tends  to 
create  supply,  a  modified  interpretation  was  brought  for- 
ward. Stress  was  carried  over  from  the  line  of  early 
witnesses  for  a  doctrine,  and  placed  upon  the  approving 
voice  of  the  majority  of  believers  in  the  present.  It  is 
enough,  it  was  claimed,  if  the  germ  of  the  doctrine  came 
to  expression  in  patristic  literature.  When  this  dim  cer- 
tificate is  supplemented  by  the  consciousness  of  the 
present  Church,  then  the  conclusion  is  warrantable  that 
the  requisite  traditionary  basis  for  a  dogmatic  definition 
is  afforded.  This  point  of  view  was  suggested  as  far 
back  as  the  time  of  Bellarmine.1  Early  in  the  pontificate 
of  Pius  IX  another  Jesuit,  Perrone,  in  a  monograph  on 
the  possibility  of  rendering  a  dogmatic  definition  of  the 
immaculate  conception  of  the  Virgin,2  gave  it  a  formal 
exposition  and  commendation.  Several  contemporary 
theologians  awarded  it  their  approval.  For  a  succinct 
and  bold  statement  of  this  revised  and  accommodating 
theory  we  may  take  these  sentences  of  Bishop  Malou: 
"There  are  writers  who  are  of  opinion  that  only  then  can 
tradition  serve  as  an  evidence  of  the  truth  when  one  is  in 

1  De  Verbo  Dei,  lib.  iv,  cap.  g. 

»  De  Immaculata  B.  V.  Man*  Conceptu,  an   Dogmatico  Decreto  definiri 
possit. 


PAPAL  ABSOLUTISM  93 

condition  to  support  the  same  through  a  line  of  express 
witnesses  through  all  the  centuries.  This  view  is  decid- 
edly incorrect,  if  not  a  downright  error.  The  Church 
lives,  and  she  lives  by  virtue  of  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ, 
whose  body  she  is;  she  lives  by  virtue  of  the  life  of  the 
Holy^  Spirit,  whose  bride  she  is.  As  soon  as  anything 
is  generally  accepted  in  the  holy  Church,  the  general 
witness  of  the  living  Church  is  an  infallible  evidence  that 
this  truth  is  contained  in  tradition,  and  indeed  inde- 
pendent of  every  memorial  of  antiquity."1 

Roman  authority  may  have  shrunk  from  a  formal  ap- 
probation of  the  reconstructed  theory  of  tradition.  To 
have  given  that  would  have  been  much  like  making  con- 
fession of  the  lack  of  historical  sanctions  for  its  dogmatic 
projects.  Nevertheless,  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that 
the  new  theory,  supremely  adapted  as  it  was  to  thrust 
historical  objections  out  of  sight,  helped  to  embolden 
Pius  IX  for  his  first  great  stroke  in  dogmatic  absolutism 
— the  proclamation,  in  1854,  of  the  immaculate  concep- 
tion of  the  Virgin  as  a  dogma  of  the  Church.  In  respect 
of  historical  basis  no  dogma  could  be  more  glaringly 
destitute.  The  Scriptures  cannot  be  seen  to  make  the 
least  approach  to  it,  except  by  the  aid  of  an  arbitrary 
mysticism  which  puts  into  the  biblical  content  whatever 
one  wishes  to  find  there.  To  suppose  in  the  simple  dec- 
laration that  Mary  was  an  object  of  favor  or  grace  a 
designed  reference  to  the  conditions  of  her  conception, 
is  to  give  place  to  a  perfectly  gratuitous  fancy.  As  well 
might  one  find  in  the  declaration  that  the  disciples,  on 
the  day  of  Pentecost,  were  filled  with  the  Holy  Spirit  an 
evident  intention  to  affirm  of  them  peculiar  antenatal 

*  Cited  by  Friedrich,  I.  635. 


94  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

conditions.  An  equal  lack  of  manifested  intention  to 
broach  or  to  advocate  the  notion  of  the  immaculate  con- 
ception of  the  Virgin  is  characteristic  of  early  patristic 
literature.  Indeed,  it  is  quite  warrantable  to  say  that 
deep  into  the  scholastic  era  that  notion  remained  sub- 
stantially foreign  to  the  minds  of  theologians.  Lauda- 
tory titles,  it  is  true,  began  to  be  applied  to  Mary  at  a 
comparatively  early  date.  With  the  advance  of  the  tend- 
ency to  saint-worship  it  was  inevitable  that  she  should 
be  highly  exalted.  It  is  no  occasion  for  surprise,  there- 
fore, that  she  should  have  been  glorified  as  the  pure,  the 
holy,  the  immaculate  Virgin.  Such  rhetorical  effusions 
simply  express  a  warm  appreciation  of  the  unsullied 
virginity,  the  sanctity,  and  the  high  vocation  of  the 
mother  of  Christ.  They  might  have  been  a  hundred 
times  as  numerous  as  they  were  and  yet  have  inclosed 
no  slightest  design  to  refer  to  so  recondite  a  matter  as 
the  nature  of  the  conception  of  Mary.  In  fact,  the  same 
writers  who  plainly  excluded  the  notion  of  the  immacu- 
late conception  freely  applied  these  forms  of  description. 
Quite  as  little  does  the  feast  of  Mary's  conception,  which 
may  have  received  some  attention  in  a  part  of  the  Church 
by  the  eighth  century,  furnish,  when  taken  in  its  primary 
character,  any  evidence  of  dogmatic  intention.  It  was 
no  feast  of  the  immaculate  conception.  Like  the  contem- 
porary feast  of  John  the  Baptist,  it  celebrated  the  fact 
of  conception — the  gracious  bestowment  of  an  offspring 
destined  to  signal  honor.  Even  in  the  twelfth  century, 
as  is  shown  by  the  tenor  of  the  reference  of  Bernard  of 
Clairvaux,1  the  feast  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
directed  specifically  to  the  celebration  of  the  immaculate 

1  Epist.  clxxiv. 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  95 

nature  of  the  conception  which  it  commemorated.  As 
Muratori  observed,  such  a  feast  as  the  one  in  question 
would  not  have  been  prohibited  even  by  an  authoritative 
declaration  that  Mary  was  not  immaculately  conceived.1 
We  are  not  required,  then,  to  find  here  any  token 
of  the  dogma  of  Pius  IX,  and  may  take  without 
essential  discount  the  adverse  testimonies  of  fathers 
and  scholastics.  Among  the  former  a  number  in- 
dicated that  they  had  no  thought  of  exempting  the 
Virgin  from  original  sin — through  the  assumption  of  an 
immaculate  conception — inasmuch  as  they  used  language 
which  implies  that  they  did  not  even  excuse  her  from 
certain  actual  faults,  such  as  overanxiety,  ambition,  or 
lack  of  faith.2  A  considerable  group  evinced  that  no 
thought  of  the  Virgin's  exemption  was  in  their  minds  by 
asserting  in  absolute  terms  that  Christ  alone  escaped  the 
taint  of  human  sinfulness.3  In  the  middle  ages  many 
writers,  the  most  eminent  included,  unequivocally  ruled 
out  the  supposition  of  the  immaculate  conception,  either 
by  express  denial  or  by  the  statement  that  Mary  was 
sanctified  in  the  womb  of  her  mother.4  As  specimen 
statements  we  may  note  those  of  Anselm  and  Aquinas. 
The  former  wrote  respecting  Mary:  "Her  mother  con- 
ceived her  in  sin,  and  she  was  born  with  original  sin, 
since  she  also  sinned  in  Adam,  in  whom  all  sinned." 

1  Stap,  L'Immacul6e  Conception,  p.  192. 

*  Irenaeus,  Cont.  Haer.,  iii.  16.  7;  Origen,  In  Luc.,  Horn,  xvii;  Chrysostom, 
In  Joan.,  Horn,  xxi;  Basil,  Epist.  cclx.  n.  9;  Cyril  of  Alexandria,  In  Joan., 
lib.  xii,  cap.  xix,  ver.  25. 

3  Justin  Martyr,  Dial  cum  Tryph.,  ex;  Tertullian,  De  Anima,  xli;  Origen, 
In  Levit.,  Horn.  xii.  n.  4;  Ambrose,  In  Luc.,  lib.  ii.  n.  56;  Augustine,  De 
Peccat.  Merit.,  i.  57,  ii.  38,  ii.  57;  Ephrem  the  Syrian,  Margarita  Pretiosa. 

4  John  of  Damascus,  De  Fid.  Orth.,  iii.   a;  Paschasius  Radbertus,   De 
Partu  Virg.,  lib.  i;  Damiani,   Liber  Gratissimus,  xix;  Anselm,  Cur  Deus 
Homo,  ii.  16;  Aquinas,  Sum.  Theol.,  iii.  27.  a;  Bonaventura,  Sent.,  lib.  iii, 
dist.  iii,  p.  i,  art.  i,  q.  i  et  2,  cited  by  A.  Stap,  L'lmmaculee  Conception, 
pp.  100,  101. 


96  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

"The  blessed  Virgin,"  said  Aquinas,  "contracted  original 
sin,  but  she  was  purified  from  it  before  she  was  born 
from  the  womb."  In  thus  expressing  themselves  these 
writers  represented  the  dominant  scholastic  teaching.  It 
was  with  good  reason  that  Duns  Scotus,  who  was  the 
first  distinguished  theologian  to  champion  the  supposi- 
tion of  the  immaculate  conception  of  the  Virgin,  based 
his  conclusion  on  speculative  grounds.  There  was  no 
historical  basis  to  which  he  could  appeal.  As  Melchior 
Canus  said  in  the  sixteenth  century :  "All  the  saints  who 
have  chanced  to  mention  the  matter  have  asserted  with 
one  voice  that  the  blessed  Virgin  was  conceived  in 
original  sin."1  To  this  common  voice  the  papacy  itself 
contributed  an  accordant  note.  Innocent  III  declared  in 
the  most  explicit  terms  that  Mary  needed  to  be  purified 
from  original  sin2;  and  Innocent  V  expressed  the  same 
judgment  without  ambiguity.3  In  fine,  to  reach  the 
dogma  of  the  immaculate  conception  it  was  necessary  to 
trample  under  foot  an  extended  line  both  of  patristic  and 
scholastic  testimonies.4  Pius  IX  was  in  desperate  need 
of  the  sanction  provided  through  the  revised  theory  of 
tradition. 

In  a  double  sense  the  dogmatic  decree  of  1854  on  the 
immaculate  conception  of  the  Virgin  was  a  congenial 
and  fruitful  antecedent  of  the  consummating  work  for 
papal  absolutism  which  was  accomplished  in  the  Vatican 
Council.  On  the  one  hand,  it  gave  a  signal  illustration 
of  the  fact  that  historical  difficulties  which  might  be 

1  Loci  Theol.,  vii.  i. 

2  Opera,  Migne,  IV.  506,  Serm.  in  Sol  em.  Purificat.  Virginis    also  Serm. 
in  Solem.  Assumpt.  Virginis. 

1  Cited  by  Stap,  L'lmmacule'e  Conception,  p.  13. 

4  For  the  original  texts  see  the  author's  History  of  the  Christian  Church, 
Modern  Church,  Part  III,  pp.  44-51. 


PAPAL  ABSOLUTISM  97 

regarded  as  insuperable  need  not  stand  in  the  way  of 
reaching  a  desired  goal.  Why  should  the  accumulated 
records  of  the  centuries  be  accounted  an  insurmountable 
obstacle  to  the  proclamation  of  the  unlimited  and  in- 
fallible monarchy  of  the  pope,  while  yet  those  who  were 
looking  to  this  end  had  in  view  the  easy  shift  by  which 
the  patristic  and  scholastic  consensus  on  the  subject  of 
the  Virgin's  conception  had  been  brought  to  naught? 
Surely  after  that  achievement  the  ambitious  fashioners 
of  new  dogmas  ought  to  have  had  any  amount  of  courage 
to  meet  the  frown  of  history.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
decree  of  1854  involved  practically  an  assumption  and 
exercise  of  the  prerogatives  of  a  dogmatic  infallibility. 
In  issuing  that  decree  on  his  sole  authority  Pius  IX  had 
already  made  use  of  a  power  the  formal  assertion  of 
which  was  a  leading  purpose  in  the  assembling  of  the 
Vatican  Council.  Let  it  be  granted  that  the  act  of  Pius 
IX  was  premature,  a  usurpation,  the  like  of  which  would 
justly  expose  the  chief  magistrate  of  a  republic  to  im- 
peachment ;  it  is  yet  true  that  the  Church  tamely  accepted 
the  usurpation.  A  logical  basis  was  thus  provided  for 
the  formal  imposition  of  the  yoke  of  infallibility.  The 
Jesuit  Schrader  was  only  stating  openly  an  induction 
which  anyone  might  easily  have  made  when  he  wrote  in 
1865:  "Pius  IX,  through  the  act  of  December  8,  1854, 
did  not  indeed  theoretically  define  the  infallibility  of  the 
pope,  but  practically  he  laid  claim  to  it."1  If  report  may 
be  trusted  the  pontiff  himself  confessed  that  his  act  was 
prophetic  of  the  Vatican  definition.2 

Besides  employing  this  portentous  expedient  for  com- 
mitting the  Church  to  his  absolutist  scheme,  Pius  IX 

1  Friedrich,  I.  291.  *Friedrich,  Tagebuch,  p.  394. 


98  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

was  conspicuously  alert  to  make  use  of  his  opportunities 
to  insinuate  teachings  comformable  to  that  scheme.  He 
inserted  them  in  his  very  first  encyclical,  issued  Novem- 
ber 9,  1846 — a  fact  which  goes  to  show  that  the  liberal- 
ism to  which  he  made  a  temporary  concession  in  the 
government  of  the  Estates  of  the  Church  never  extended 
to  his  ecclesiastical  theory.  In  that  manifesto  these 
strong  words  occur:  "It  plainly  appears  in  how  great 
error  they  are  involved  who,  abusing  reason  and  esteem- 
ing the  oracles  of  God  a  human  work,  rashly  presume 
according  to  their  own  preference  to  explain  and  to  in- 
terpret those  oracles,  although  God  himself  has  consti- 
tuted a  living  authority,  which  might  teach  and  establish 
the  true  and  legitimate  sense  of  his  heavenly  revelation, 
and  settle  all  controversies  in  matters  of  faith  and  morals 
by  an  infallible  judgment.  And  this  living  and  infallible 
authority  is  operative  only  in  that  Church  which,  having 
been  founded  by  Christ  the  Lord  upon  Peter,  the  head 
of  the  whole  Church,  prince  and  pastor,  whose  faith  was 
promised  never  to  fail,  has  always  had  its  legitimate 
pontiffs,  deriving  their  origin  without  interruption  from 
Peter  himself,  occupying  his  chair  and  being  heirs  and 
defenders  of  the  same  doctrine,  dignity,  honor,  and 
power.  And  since  -where  Peter  is  there  is  the  Church, 
and  Peter  speaks  through  the  Roman  pontiff,  and  always 
lives  and  exercises  judgment  in  his  successors,  and 
presents  to  inquirers  the  truth  of  the  faith,  therefore  the 
divine  oracles  are  plainly  to  be  held  in  that  sense  in 
which  this  chair  of  blessed  Peter  holds  and  has  held 
them."  Statements  carrying  the  same  implication  that 
the  Roman  pontiff  is  the  one  and  sufficient  standard 
occur  in  the  Syllabus  of  1864.  They  are  implicitly  con- 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  99 

tained  there  in  the  condemnation  passed  upon  the  asser- 
tions that  the  decree  of  the  apostolic  see  fetters  the  free 
progress  of  science;  that  the  Roman  pontiffs  (and  ecu- 
menical councils)  have  exceeded  the  limits  of  their 
power  and  even  committed  errors  in  defining  matters  of 
faith  and  morals;  that  the  Roman  pontiffs  by  their  too 
arbitrary  conduct  have  contributed  to  the  division  of  the 
Church  into  eastern  and  western;  and  that  the  Roman 
pontiff  ought  to  reconcile  himself  to,  and  agree  with, 
progress,  liberalism,  and  civilization  as  lately  intro- 
duced.1 Again,  at  the  centenary  of  Peter  in  1867  pains 
were  taken  to  emphasize  the  idea  that  the  pope  is  the  in- 
comparable standard.  He  is  described  as  the  universal 
pastor  upon  whom  all  must  lean  for  strength  and  direc- 
tion. Addressing  the  assembled  bishops  Pius  IX  said : 
"As  Saint  Leo  the  Great  indicated,  'the  Lord  entertained 
a  special  care  for  Peter  and  prayed  specially  for  the  faith 
of  Peter,  since  the  state  of  the  others  would  be  more 
certain  if  the  mind  of  the  chief  should  not  be  overcome. 
In  Peter,  therefore,  the  fortitude  of  all  is  made  secure 
and  the  aid  of  divine  grace  is  so  ordered  that  the  firm- 
ness which  through  Christ  is  bestowed  upon  Peter  is  con- 
ferred through  Peter  upon  the  other  apostles.'  Where- 
fore we  cherish  always  the  persuasion  that  it  cannot  but 
result  that  you  should  receive  a  share  of  the  fortitude 
with  which  Peter  by  the  extraordinary  gift  of  the  Lord 
was  endowed,  as  often  as  you  may  take  your  station  near 
to  the  person  itself  of  Peter,  who  lives  in  his  successors, 
and  simply  touch  the  soil  of  this  city  which  has  been 
watered  by  the  sweat  and  victorious  blood  of  the  sacred 
prince  of  the  apostles/'2 

1  Nos.  12,  23,  38,  80.  *Cecconi,  Storiade Concilio  Vaticano,  I.  342,  343,  Doc.  x. 


loo  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

In  enumerating  the  expedients  which  helped  forward 
the  Vatican  project,  it  would  be  a  serious  error  not  to 
mention  the  utilization  of  sentimental  devotion  and 
allied  means.  In  the  years  immediately  preceding,  as 
also  in  those  following,  the  proclamation  of  the  dogma 
of  the  immaculate  conception,  the  cult  of  the  Virgin  was 
prosecuted  with  almost  unexampled  fervor.  Pius  IX 
himself  gave  a  powerful  incentive  to  the  cult  by  well- 
nigh  exhausting  the  language  of  worshipful  recognition. 
In  the  letter  which  he  addressed  to  the  bishops  in  1849 
relative  to  the  proposed  definition  of  the  immaculate  con- 
ception he  said :  "You  know  very  well,  venerable  breth- 
ren, that  the  whole  of  our  confidence  is  placed  in  the  most 
holy  Virgin,  since  God  has  placed  in  Mary  the  fullness 
of  all  good,  that  accordingly  we  may  know  that  if  there 
is  any  hope  in  us,  if  any  grace,  if  any  salvation,  it  re- 
dounds to  us  from  her,  because  such  is  his  will  who  hath 
willed  that  we  should  have  everything  through  Mary."1 
In  the  dogmatic  decree  of  1854  the  pope  gave  a  like  es- 
timate of  the  position  of  Mary  in  these  words :  "Having 
been  made  by  the  Lord  Queen  of  heaven  and  earth,  and 
exalted  above  all  the  orders  of  angels  and  saints,  stand- 
ing at  the  right  hand  of  her  only  begotten  Son,  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  by  her  mother's  prayers  she  does  most 
potently  impetrate,  and  finds  what  she  seeks,  and  cannot 
be  frustrated."  Many  of  the  bishops  expressed  them- 
selves in  equivalent  terms.  Some  of  them  did  not  shun 
to  proclaim  the  association  of  the  Virgin  with  the  Son 
of  God  in  the  work  of  redemption  by  styling  her  "Co- 
Redeemer"  or  "Co-Redemptress."  In  an  elaborate 
treatise  on  the  Immaculate  Conception,  published  in 

1  Cited  by  Pusey,  Eirenicon,  pp.  122,  123. 


PAPAL  ABSOLUTISM  lot 

1857,  Malou,  Bishop  of  Bruges,  applied  this  title  to 
Mary,  and  went  on  to  assert  for  her  a  certain  primogeni- 
ture among  all  creatures  in  these  astonishing  terms: 
"One  understands  with  what  justice  the  Holy  Spirit 
could  speak  of  the  origin  of  Mary  when  he  revealed  the 
eternal  origin  of  the  Word,  and  with  how  good  a  right 
the  Church  has  been  able  to  apply  to  Mary  the  words  of 
Scripture  which  concern  the  birth  of  the  Divine  Wisdom. 
When  understood  of  the  conception  of  the  Mother  of 
God,  there  is  no  longer  any  obscurity  in  these  words, 
'The  Lord  possessed  me  at  the  beginning  of  his  ways, 
before  that  he  created  aught.'  Mary  is  presented  here 
as  the  first  of  creatures.  .  .  .  This  primogeniture  sup- 
poses in  Mary  a  superiority,  in  some  sort  eternal  and 
wholly  celestial,  which  assimilates  her  to  the  Son  of 
God."1  While  thus  pope  and  bishops  were  raising  their 
high  acclaim  to  the  Virgin,  means  of  effective  appeals 
to  the  masses  were  zealously  employed.  The  reputed  ap- 
pearance of  the  immaculate  mother,  in  1858,  to  a  peasant 
girl  at  Lourdes  was  utilized  to  the  full.  Great  proces- 
sions were  gotten  up  in  honor  of  the  celestial  visitant, 
and  it  began  to  look  as  if  Roman  Catholic  France  would 
be  turned  into  a  kindergarten,  where  grown-up  people, 
as  well  as  little  children,  would  elect  to  be  fed  on  fairy 
tales. 

The  promotion  of  the  cult  of  the  Virgin,  however  it 
may  have  been  designed  to  result,  was  not  indifferently 
related  to  the  project  of  a  relative  deification  of  the  pope. 
Minds  that  were  overflowing  with  sentimental  devotion 
were  in  a  specially  apt  frame  to  lavish  their  tribute  at  the 
feet  of  one  whom  they  were  solicited  to  regard  as  the 

1  Cited  by  Stap,  L'Immacul6e  Conception,  pp.  21  off. 


loa  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

infallible  vicar  of  Christ.  At  any  rate,  zealots  for  the 
cult  of  the  Virgin  were  in  general  zealots  for  the  exalta- 
tion of  the  pope.  Some  of  the  tributes  rendered  in  the 
latter  direction  were  very  extraordinary.  In  1866  the 
Bishop  of  Bordeaux  described  the  pope  as  "the  center 
of  divine  government  and  the  living  incarnation  of  the 
authority  of  Christ."1  Veuillot  in  the  same  year  did 
obeisance  in  this  formula:  "The  pope  is,  like  Jesus 
Christ,  the  absolute  ruler  of  consciences  and  scepters; 
Jesus  Christ,  sovereign  master  of  all  things,  resides  in 
the  pope  not  only  by  the  title  of  pontiff,  but  still  further 
by  that  of  king  of  kings."2  A  contributor  to  the  Civilta 
Cattolica  in  1868  estimated  the  papal  office  in  these 
terms:  "The  treasures  of  this  revelation,  treasures  of 
truth,  treasures  of  justice,  treasures  of  spiritual  gifts 
have  been  deposited  upon  earth  in  the  hands  of  one  man, 
who  is  the  sole  dispenser  and  custodian  of  them.  .  .  . 
This  man  is  the  pope."3  In  words  that  fairly  invite 
question  as  to  the  sanity  of  their  authors,  individuals  at 
the  height  of  this  sentimental  effervescence  even  ven- 
tured to  apply  to  the  pope  such  names  as  the  "Holy 
Spirit"  and  the  "Eucharist" — meaning  probably  by  the 
latter  designation  to  style  the  pope  the  visible  shrine  of 
the  most  holy  presence  of  the  God-man.  Gratry  testi- 
fies that  these  strange  expressions  were  used  in  com- 
munications addressed  to  himself.4 

To  swell  the  tide  of  sentimental  devotion,  and  to  work 
with  it  in  the  direction  of  the  Vatican  ideal,  two  notable 
practical  expedients  were  employed.  The  first  of  these  was 
the  Infallibility  League,  the  plan  of  which  was  sketched 

1  Original  given  by  Friedrich,  I.  499.  *  Friedrich,  I.  500. 

8  Original  given  by  Janus  (Dollinger),  Der  Papst  und  das  Condi,  p.  43. 
4  Letters  to  Dechamps,  trans,  by  Bailey,  letter  iii,  pp.  22,  23. 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  103 

in  an  article  published  in  the  Civilta  Cattolica,  June  15, 
1867.  The  members  of  this  league  obligated  themselves 
to  profess,  even  at  the  price  of  shedding  blood,  if  neces- 
sary, the  dogma  of  papal  infallibility.1  How  largely  the 
bishops  took  on  an  obligation  of  this  kind  remains  in 
question.  The  record  of  two  of  them  in  the  matter  has 
been  reported  by  Manning  as  follows:  "On  the  eve  of 
Saint  Peter's  Day  (1867)  I  and  the  bishop  of  Ratisbon 
were  assisting  at  the  throne  of  the  pope  at  the  first  ves- 
pers of  Saint  Peter ;  we  then  made  the  vow  drawn  up  by 
Liberatore,  an  Italian  Jesuit,  to  do  all  in  our  power  to 
obtain  the  definition  of  papal  infallibility.  We  undertook 
to.  recite  every  day  certain  prayers  in  Latin  contained  in 
a  little  book  still  (1881)  in  my  possession."2 

The  second  of  the  two  expedients  was  the  consecration 
of  a  prayer  union — entitled  the  Apostolate  of  Prayer  of 
the  Most  Holy  Heart  of  Jesus — to  the  service  of  the  in- 
fallibility project.  This  union  was  widely  disseminated. 
It  is  alleged  to  have  attained  by  1869  a  membership  of 
several  millions.  A  form  of  prayer  prescribed  in  that 
year  by  the  general  director,  the  Jesuit  Ramiere,  ran  as 
follows:  "O  blessed  Peter,  upon  whom  Jesus  Christ  has 
founded  his  Church,  obtain  from  this  divine  Lord  abun- 
dant graces  for  the  council,  and  in  particular,  if  such  be 
the  divine  pleasure,  obtain  for  us  this  distinguished 
favor,  that  in  the  august  assembly  of  the  pastors  of  souls 
the  supreme  pastor,  thy  successor,  may  be  declared  in- 
fallible in  his  decrees  when  he  speaks  as  universal 
pastor."3 

On  the  whole,  there  is  reason  to  conclude  that  Fried- 


1  Cecconi,  Storia  del  Concilio  Vaticano,  II.  434-436. 

*  Purcell,  Life  of  Manning,  II.  420          3  Civilta  Cattolica,  1869,  VI.  356. 


104  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

rich  spoke  with  insight,  when,  referring  back  to  the  time 
of  the  Vatican  Council,  he  said:  "The  attempt  which 
was  then  made  to  attach  the  curia  and  the  Ultramontane 
party  to  Scripture  and  tradition  was  entirely  vain.  Not 
out  of  them  sprang  the  tendency  toward  papal  infalli- 
bility, but  out  of  the  papal  cult  which  in  an  unexampled 
manner  was  fostered  and  enlarged  in  the  last  decades. 
This,  however,  amounts  to  nothing  else  than  a  sinking 
back  into  a  mythologizing  heathenism,  which  consists 
partly  in  this  very  thing,  that  it  cannot  hold  fast  to  reli- 
gious ideas  and  potencies  in  a  purely  spiritual  sphere,  but 
proceeds  to  materialize,  incorporate,  and  personify 
them."1 

IV. — THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL  AND  ITS  DECREES 

/  The  preceding  history,  as  recounted  in  this  chapter, 
amounts  to  a  history  of  the  antecedents  of  the  council, 
which  was  opened  December  8,  1869,  had  its  last  im- 
portant session  July  18,  1870,  and  was  declared  sus- 
pended October  20  of  the  same  year,  shortly  before  Rome 
had  passed  into  the  possession  of  Victor  Emmanuel  and 
been  incorporated  with  the  kingdom  of  Italy.  As  we 
have  seen,  a  reaction  against  the  violence  and  excesses  of 
the  French  revolution  gave  a  certain  advantage  to  Ul- 
tramontanism,  as  against  the  Gallicanism  which  was  still 
extensively  held  at  the  beginning  of  the  century.  At  this 
juncture  a  plausible  case  was  made  out  for  the  former 
by  such  gifted  advocates  as  De  Maistre  and  Lamennais. 
Their  writings,  though  far  from  being  specimens  of  sober 
and  rigorous  method,  were  well  adapted  to  reinforce 

1  Geschichte  des  vatikanischen  Konzils,  II.  428. 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  105 

reactionary  tendencies,  and  to  marshal  them  into  the 
service  of  ecclesiastical  absolutism.  Meanwhile  every 
development  in  this  direction  was  zealously  seconded  by 
the  pope  and  the  curia.  Power,  patronage,  benedictions, 
censures,  fostering  of  sentimental  devotion,  all  expe- 
dients, in  short,  which  were  adapted  to  render  aid  in 
reaching  the  absolutist  goal,  were  industriously  employed 
through  the  middle  decades  of  the  century.  Thus  every- 
thing was  made  ready  for  the  revolutionary  act  by  which 
every  remnant  of  provision  for  coordinate  authority  was 
eliminated  from  the  constitution  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  and  all  sovereignty  was  formally  declared  to  be 
concentrated  in  the  pope.  The  full  time  for  the  Vatican 
Council  had  come.  It  is  true,  doubtless,  that  in  the  more 
alert  and  scholarly  portions  of  the  Church  a  broad  zone 
of  opposition  still  remained  to  turning  a  doubtful  school 
opinion  into  a  dogma;  but  the  possibility  of  the  despotic 
performance  was  now  in  sight. 

In  a  way  the  council  existed  before  it  was  convenec 
Anxiety  to  make  it  conform  to  the  Vatican  model  caused] 
an  antecedent  shaping  process  to  be  applied  in  a  manner  j 
unparalleled  in   conciliar  history.     The  first   step  was 
taken  in  December,  1864,  just  before  the  publication  of 
the  Syllabus  of  Errors,  when  Pius  IX  secretly  broached 
his  purpose  to  call  a  council.    A  little  later  five  cardinals 
were  appointed  as  a  commission  to  consider  preliminary 
questions.    The  first  meeting  of  the  commission  occurred 
in  March,  1865.     Already  at  this  meeting  the  secretary 
— the  titular  archbishop  of  Sardes — made  the  very  sig- 
nificant suggestions  that  it  was  important  to  have  the 
matters  with  which  the  council  might  deal  brought  into 
a  state  of  preparation  beforehand,  and  also  to  make  sure 


106  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

that  the  Italian  bishops  should  be  present  in  full  force 
as  being  most  likely  to  act  in  accord  with  the  apostolic 
see.  Within  a  moderate  interval  from  the  meeting  of 
the  commission  letters  were  secretly  sent  out  to  a  number 
of  bishops,  selected  by  the  pope,  for  the  purpose  of 
gathering  in  opinions  on  the  choice  of  subjects  for  the 
consideration  of  the  council.  At  this  point  it  lay  in  the 
design  of  Pius  IX  to  call  the  assembly  for  1867,  the  cen- 
tenary year  of  the  martyrdom  of  Peter.  But  the  dis- 
turbed condition  of  Italian  politics  interposed  a  barrier 
to  this  part  of  his  scheme.  Practical  work,  however, 
went  forward  at  a  fair  pace.  The  Special  Directive  Con- 
gregation, or  Central  Commission,  which  was  appointed 
in  accordance  with  the  recommendation  of  the  initial 
meeting  noticed  above,  held  a  number  of  sittings  (1865- 
1867),  and  at  length  outlined  a  scheme  of  five  commis- 
sions. Each  of  these  had  a  cardinal  for  president,  and 
for  members  consulters  who  were  in  good  repute  with 
the  pope  and  the  curia,  nearly  half  of  them  being  resi- 
dents of  Rome.  Their  respective  tasks  concerned  dogma, 
discipline,  religious  orders,  missions  and  Oriental 
churches,  and  ecclesiastico-political  matters.  Before  the 
end  of  1867  most  of  them  had  held  sittings.  Thus  not  a 
little  had  been  done  for  the  molding  of  conciliar  decisions 
before  the  formal  summons  for  the  assembling  of  the 
council  had  been  issued,  for  that  did  not  occur  till  June 
29,  1868.  Of  course,  this  work  was  largely  provisional; 
but  that  fact  does  not  avert  the  conclusion  that  it  involved 
an  abridgment  of  the  function  ordinarily  pertaining  to  an 
ecumenical  assembly.  It  was  of  the  nature  of  a  shackle 
upon  the  free  action  of  the  council  to  be  confronted  by 
a  list  of  propositions  formulated  by  bodies  with  whose 


PAPAL  ABSOLUTISM  107 

selection  and  proceedings  it  had  been  conceded  no  sort 
of  agency.  And  this  limitation  was  much  aggravated  by 
the  rule  which  was  adopted  respecting  the  right  of  initia- 
tive. This  rule,  adopted  by  the  Directive  Congregation 
and  approved  by  Pius  IX,  provided  that  the  right  of 
introducing  matters  to  the  council  should  belong  in  the 
full  sense  to  the  pope  alone.  The  privilege  conceded  to 
the  bishops  consisted  simply  in  the  permission  to  make 
recommendations  to  a  commission  selected  by  the  pope, 
which  commission  was  to  pass  on  the  recommendations 
and  then  refer  them  to  the  pope  for  a  final  judgment. 
In  the  matter  of  amending  propositions  a  greater  degree 
of  liberty  was  granted.  Commissions  or  deputations 
elected  by  vote  of  the  council,  and  having  charge  re- 
spectively of  questions  relative  to  dogma,  to  discipline,  to 
religious  orders,  and  to  Oriental  affairs,  were  to  take  the 
amendments  into  consideration.  Those  offering  the 
amendments,  however,  had  no  acknowledged  right  to 
appear  before  the  deputations  to  justify  the  desired 
changes.  In  short,  the  scheme  worked  up  for  the  coun- 
cil, in  advance  of  all  action  on  its  part,  was  peculiarly 
adapted  to  make  it  an  instrument  for  the  fulfillment  of 
papal  ambitions.1  v 

In  its  composition  the  council  was  well  adapted  to  ful\ 
fill  the  role  of  a  papal  instrument.    Most  of  its  members  | 
had  reached  their  official  stations  through  favor  of  the/ 
pope.    By  the  year  1869  fully  eight  ninths  of  all  those  in 
the  actual  exercise  of  the  episcopal  office,  all  but  twelve 
of  the  cardinals,  and  all  but  thirty-seven  of  the  two  hun- 
dred and  thirty  bishops  in  partibus  infidelium  and  apos- 

1  The  facts  recorded  in  the  paragraph  are  for  the  most  part  matters  of 
common  recognition  in  the  histories  of  the  council  by  Cecconi,  Friedrich, 
and  Granderath, 


io8  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

tolic  vicars  had  been  appointed  under  the  auspices  of 
Pius  IX.  Of  the  assembled  body,  amounting  at  the 
maximum  to  over  seven  hundred,  more  than  one  third 
were  Italians.  Italy,  in  fact,  was  represented  by  a  larger 
number  than  all  the  other  sections  of  Europe  put  to- 
gether. A  considerable  section  of  the  council,  just  about 
one  fourth,  as  being  made  up  of  bishops  in  partibus  in- 
fidelium,  apostolic  vicars,  abbots,  and  generals  of  orders, 
stood  for  no  diocesan  constituency.  Many  of  these  held 
a  very  dependent  relation  to  the  pope  and  the  curia,  and 
were  not  likely  to  be  unmindful  of  their  obligations  to 
the  party  by  whose  grace  admission  to  the  ecumenical 
assembly  was  conceded  to  them.1  Thus  the  composition 
of  the  council  furnished  beforehand  a  tolerably  secure 
guarantee  respecting  its  action.  The  simple  preponder- 
ance of  the  Latin  nations  in  its  membership  was 
prophetic  of  an  absolutist  and  infallibilist  outcome.  In 
the  education  of  the  clergy  in  these  nations  the  high 
papal  theories  had  received  practically  the  full  benefit  of 
the  vast  chain  of  forgeries  perpetrated  in  their  behalf 
along  the  course  of  the  centuries — forgeries  of  pseudo 
Cyprian  and  pseudo  Isidore,  forgeries  taken  up  by 
Gratian  and  other  canonists,  forgeries  of  the  thirteenth 
century  which  deceived  Thomas  Aquinas  and  through 
his  powerful  commendation  gained  wide  influence. 
Grant  that  by  the  nineteenth  century  the  forgeries  had 
in  large  part  been  unmasked ;  in  effect  they  were  by  no 
means  put  out  of  the  field.  Some  of  them  kept  a  place 
in  writings  held  in  the  highest  reverence,  like  those  of 
Liguori ;  and  the  inferences  drawn  from  them  permeated 
many  of  the  text-books.  In  short,  Dollinger  may  be 

'Friedrich,  I.  438;  III.  206-211. 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  109 

credited  with  a  perfectly  clear  understanding  of  what  he 
was  doing  when  he  uttered  this  bold  challenge :  "I  offer 
to  bring  forward  proofs  that  the  bishops  of  the  Romance 
countries,  Spain,  Italy,  South  America,  and  France,  who 
formed  the  enormous  majority  at  Rome,  had,  together 
with  their  clergy,  as  regards  the  papal  power,  already 
been  led  astray  by  books  of  doctrine  out  of  which  they 
had  derived  their  knowledge  during  their  college  years; 
for  the  passages  quoted  in  these  books  as  proofs  are  for 
the  most  part  false,  fabricated,  or  garbled."1 

That  the  council,  which  in  the  composition  of  its 
majority  was  so  well  adapted  to  take  the  line  of  papal 
preference,  was  designed  from  the  start  to  serve  above 
all  as  an  instrument  for  promulgating  the  absolute  and 
infallible  sovereignty  of  the  Roman  pontiff,  cannot  fairly 
be  questioned.  No  doubt  those  who  prefer  not  to  admit 
that  this  was  the  controlling  design  are  able  to  point  to 
the  fact  that  in  the  official  preparations  for  the  council 
conspicuous  attention  was  not  given  to  the  subject  of 
papal  infallibility.  But,  of  course,  a  plea  of  this  kind  has 
very  little  weight,  since  it  was  the  plainest  dictate  of 
prudence  not  to  advertise  the  infallibilist  program,  and 
thus  to  excite  opponents  to  bring  out  and  to  marshal 
their  full  strength.  The  history  of  the  council  shows 
plainly  enough  what  was  the  design  of  the  council. 
Moreover,  unambiguous  hints  were  furnished  in  the  an- 
tecedent events.  The  preparatory  dogmatic  commission 
seems  to  have  concerned  itself  with  the  infallibility  ques- 
tion as  early  as  1868.  In  February  of  1869  it  occupied 
itself  with  its  discussion  during  several  sessions,  and 
again  in  June  of  the  same  year  returned  to  its  considera- 

1  Letter  to  Archbishop  von  Scherr,  March  28,  1871. 


no  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

tion.1  The  commission  did  not,  indeed,  assume  unquali- 
fiedly that  the  question  would  come  before  the  council, 
and  considered  it  best  to  leave  the  matter  of  its  introduc- 
tion dependent  on  the  request  of  the  bishops ;  but  still  the 
action  taken  shows  plainly  enough  the  direction  of  ex- 
pectation, and,  we  may  also  say,  the  direction  of  purpose, 
since  the  members  of  the  commission  were  perfectly 
assured  that  the  request  of  which  they  spoke  would  be 
forthcoming  when  the  Ultramontane  wing  of  the  council 
should  be  informed  that  the  opportune  moment  had  ar- 
rived. Additional  tokens  of  intention  may  be  found  in 
the  origination  of  an  Infallibility  League,  in  the  devote- 
ment  of  a  prayer  union  to  the  cause  of  infallibility,  and 
in  the  character  of  the  report,  already  referred  to,  which 
the  nuncio  sent  from  Munich,  September  10,  1869. 
Why  should  the  nuncio  in  a  message  to  his  master 
in  Rome,  express  his  regrets  over  the  coldness  of  the 
German  bishops  toward  the  project  of  erecting  papal 
infallibility  into  a  dogma  unless  he  was  confident  that 
this  project  was  one  to  which  the  mind  of  the  pope 
was  devoted?  We  conclude,  therefore,  that  the  pre- 
diction, published  in  the  Civilta  Cattolica,  February 
6,  1869,  that  the  impending  council  would  proclaim 
by  acclamation  the  dogma  of  papal  infallibility  was 
not  simply  the  adventurous  statement  of  an  indi- 
vidual contributor,  but  a  valid  revelation  of  the  leading 
purpose  in  calling  the  council  and  in  shaping  beforehand 
its  transactions.  Possibly  the  "acclamation"  feature  had 
not  been  very  seriously  considered ;  but  the  enthronement 
of  the  given  dogma  was  undoubtedly  most  earnestly  con- 
templated. 

i  Cecconi,  I.  374.  275;  Friedrich,  I.  643,  745. 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  in 

Since  the  council  was  called,  not  for  the  purpose  of 
investigating  and  finding  out  the  truth,  but  for  the 
achievement  of  a  predetermined  end,  Pius  IX  was  not 
fulfilling  an  altogether  inconsistent  part  in  throwing  the 
weight  of  action  and  speech  on  the  side  of  the  party  de- 
voted to  that  end.  He  could  afford  to  expend  a  little  zeal 
in  that  direction,  since  in  gaining  the  sought-for  declara- 
tion respecting  his  unlimited  and  infallible  sovereignty 
he  was  securing,  in  addition  to  all  else,  a  kind  of  indem- 
nity bill  for  his  presumptuous  and  arbitrary  act  in  pro- 
claiming as  dogma  the  immaculate  conception  of  the 
Virgin.  At  any  rate,  he  proceeded  in  the  manner  of  the 
partisan  and  the  advocate.  His  confirmation  of  the  con- 
demnation passed  by  the  Congregation  of  the  Index  upon 
Bellinger's  scathing  criticism  of  the  infallibility  dogma 
was  conspicuously  posted  in  Rome  six  days  before  the 
opening  of  the  council.  Maret's  treatise,  only  second  to 
that  of  Dollinger  in  the  effective  array  of  historical  ob- 
jections which  it  presented,  was  forbidden  to  be  placed 
on  sale  and  distributed  in  the  ecclesiastical  capital.  Evi- 
dently the  council  was  not  called  for  any  purpose  of 
investigation,  otherwise  the  demand  would  have  been  to 
put  such  learned  and  searching  works  into  the  hands  of 
every  member,  instead  of  attempting  to  brand  them  as 
unfit  for  sight  or  touch.  Quite  in  line  with  this  effort  to 
seal  up  sources  of  information  were  the  instructions 
given  to  Theiner,  prefect  of  the  Vatican  archives,  not  to 
permit  anyone  to  see  the  acta  of  the  Council  of  Trent 
which  were  placed  in  his  keeping,  and  the  subsequent 
dismissal  of  the  prefect  because  he  was  thought  not  to 
have  been  sufficiently  alert  to  keep  inconvenient  informa- 
tion out  of  sight.  The  pope,  furthermore,  gave  emphatic 


us  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

expression  to  his  antipathy  toward  the  anti-infallibilist 
minority  in  the  council  by  the  use  of  very  disparaging 
terms  on  various  occasions.  In  an  address  before  fifteen 
hundred  people  he  spoke  of  "blind  leaders  of  the  blind" 
in  a  way  which  left  no  one  to  doubt  that  he  meant  the 
bishops  of  the  opposition.  While  speaking  at  the  Ameri- 
can College  in  Rome  he  openly  deplored  the  antagonistic 
position  taken  by  a  part  of  the  American  bishops.  When 
he  heard  the  news  of  Montalembert's  death  he  was  un- 
kind enough  to  rate  him,  notwithstanding  his  services  to 
the  Ultramontane  cause,  as  being  in  view  of  his  recent 
liberal  tendencies  only  "a  half-Catholic."  Smiting  re- 
marks were  made  about  others  who  were  classed  as 
adversaries,  and  words  of  blandest  approbation  bestowed 
upon  those  who  by  writings,  speeches,  or  resolutions 
gave  expression  to  their  zeal  for  the  absolutist  program.1 
How  hopeless  is  the  attempt  to  exculpate  Pius  IX  from 
the  charge  of  having  played  the  role  of  the  partisan  may 
be  judged  from  the  way  in  which  a  stanch  infallibilist 
justifies  his  course.  "It  is  said,"  writes  Hergenrother, 
"that  in  the  disputes  respecting  the  council  the  pope  most 
plainly  sided  with  one  party,  encouraging  and  commend- 
ing the  infallibilists  by  word  and  in  writing,  and  blaming 
their  opponents.  Should  he  then  have  been  silent  when 
men  were  beginning  to  cast  doubts  upon  a  truth  of  which 
he  was  convinced?  ...  Is  it  not  the  right  and  the 
duty  of  the  pope  to  protect  the  faith  of  the  Roman 
Church  from  calumny,  and  to  defend  it  at  every  point, 
to  uphold  the  decrees  and  censures  of  his  predecessors,  to 
preserve  the  prerogatives  of  the  apostolic  see?"2  In 


PP 


1  Friedrich,  Vat.  Konzil,  III.  100,  101,  389-391,  713,  798-808;  Tagebuch, 
i.  64,  155.  3  Catholic  Church  and  Christian  State,  p.  143. 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  113 

answer  to  the  fervent  apologist  we  may  remark,  in  the 
first  place,  that  it  was  scarcely  in  good  form  for  the  pope 
to  make  a  show  of  calling  a  deliberative  assembly,  and 
then  to  treat  its  members  as  worthy  of  stripes  for  claim- 
ing anything  like  a  free  use  of  the  prerogatives  properly 
belonging  to  judges  of  the  truth  and  makers  of  de- 
crees. And  in  the  second  place  we  may  answer, 
that  one  is  putting  forth  very  exorbitant  demands 
when  he  asks  us  to  suppose  that  supernatural  guid- 
ance shaped  the  action  of  an  assembly  in  the  man- 
agement of  which  the  crassest  mundane  expedients 
had  so  prominent  a  part. 

Privilege  of  debate  under  such  conditions  did  not 
amount  to  full  conciliar  privilege.  The  worth  of  the 
privilege,  too,  was  materially  abridged  by  the  bad  acous- 
tic properties  of  the  hall  of  assembly.  According  to 
thoroughly  reliable  testimony  only  the  best  speakers 
could  make  themselves  heard  by  more  than  a  fraction 
of  the  audience.  As  regards  the  bulk  of  permitted 
speech-making,  if  we  judge  by  the  standard  of  party 
politics,  we  may  say  that  the  minority  were  given  a  re- 
spectable opportunity  to  present  their  side  of  the  case, 
though  they  were  subject  to  annoyance  by  the  knowledge 
that  the  power  of  closure  was  in  unfriendly  hands,  and 
also  by  positive  rumors  at  one  stage  or  another  that 
closure  was  about  to  be  imposed.  If  we  judge  by  the  in- 
trinsic demands  of  the  tremendous  issues  at  stake  we 
shall  be  obliged  to  conclude  that  the  amount  of  examina- 
tion awarded  to  the  grounds  and  merits  of  the  decrees 
which  the  council  was  asked  to  approve  was  paltry  and 
even  ridiculous.  The  formal  discussion  of  the  entire 
constitution  on  the  Church,  including  three  chapters  on 


ii4  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

the  primacy  of  Peter  and  the  Roman  pontiff  and  a  fourth 
on  infallibility,  fell  between  May  1 1  and  July  18. 

The  speakers  belonging  to  the  majority  or  infallibilist 
party  may  be  credited  with  doing  about  as  well  as  the 
merits  of  their  case  would  permit.  They  exhibited  a 
fair  degree  of  industry  and  acuteness  in  parrying  the 
force  of  objections  and  in  making  the  most  of  the  his- 
torical evidences  for  their  absolutist  theories.  But  what- 
ever the  grade  of  the  special  pleading  in  which  they  en- 
gaged, it  was  still  special  pleading,  and  nothing  higher, 
which  was  continually  being  put  on  exhibition  in  their 
argumentation.  They  as  good  as  ignored  the  fundamen- 
tally important  bearing  of  the  moral  character  of  the 
popes  upon  doctrinal  impeccability  or  infallibility.  In 
their  dealing  with  history  they  showed  amazingly  small 
regard  for  perspective.  Going  through  the  broad  field 
of  Christian  antiquity,  they  seized  upon  isolated  state- 
ments, put  an  exaggerated  meaning  into  them,  and  made 
them  to  count  for  more  than  the  general  tenor  of  the 
collective  action  of  the  Church  through  generation  after 
generation.  They  greatly  magnified  the  importance  of 
certain  councils  having  a  very  scanty  claim  to  an  ecu- 
menical rank,  notably  that  of  the  Council  of  Florence,  an 
assembly  composed  of  no  more  than  sixty-two  members 
from  the  entire  Western  Church,  fifty  of  whom  were 
Italians.1  On  the  other  side,  they  dealt  much  too  slight- 
ingly with  the  enormous  obstacles  raised  against  their 
dogmatic  theories  by  the  combined  action  of  councils 
and  popes  at  Constance  and  Basle.  Very  largely  they 
went  on  the  implicit  assumption  that  convenience  is  a 
test  of  truth;  and  now  and  then  one  of  their  number 

» Friedrich,  III.  498. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  115 

explicitly  argued  that  it  was  expedient  and  necessary  to 
have  a  pontiff  declared  to  be  infallible,  who,  in  the  exer- 
cise of  his  independent  sovereignty,  would  be  able  to 
smite  quickly  the  errors  which  are  ever  pouring  into  the 
modern  world — a  style  of  argument  that  would  have 
some  claim  to  respectability,  if  there  were  any  decent 
proof  of  the  existence  of  that  kind  of  a  pontiff,  if  variety 
of  belief  were  the  supreme  evil,  and  if  an  untrammeled 
despotism  over  the  souls  and  minds  of  men  were  nothing 
to  fear  or  deplore.  With  practical  resort  to  the  test  of 
convenience  prominent  advocates  of  the  infallibilist  creed 
lightened  the  demand  for  meeting  historical  objections 
by  smuggling  in  the  fiction  that  Scripture  and  tradition 
are  so  fully  on  the  side  of  that  creed  that  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  resolve  all  the  objections  which  history  presents. 
In  individual  instances  fervid  apologists  met  difficulties 
with  such  arbitrary  assertions  as  can  be  compared  to 
nothing  less  than  the  requirement  to  ignore  the  sight  of 
one's  eyes  in  full  daylight.  Here  belongs  the  declaration 
of  Archbishop  Cullen  that  no  council  ever  condemned 
Pope  Honorius  as  a  heretic.1 

In  opposing  the  dogmatic  scheme  submitted  to  the 
council  the  minority  were  somewhat  hampered  by  their 
antecedent  record.  For  the  most  part  prior  to  the  coun- 
cil, instead  of  opposing  the  declaration  of  papal  infalli- 
bility on  the  score  of  the  baselessness  and  falsity  of  the 
proposed  dogma,  they  had  opposed  the  declaration  on  the 
ground  of  its  being  inopportune.  Possibly  in  some  cases 
that  was  the  extent  of  their  objection ;  but  there  is  reason 
to  believe  that  in  many  cases  the  objection  went  further. 


1  Relatively  full  sketches  of  the  speeches  delivered  in  the  council  are 
given  by  Granderath,  Geschichte  des  vatikanischen  Konzils,  vol.  III. 


ii6  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

Naturally  a  bishop  standing  by  himself,  and  speaking  in 
his  individual  capacity,  would  be  moved  to  offer  the 
mildest  rather  than  the  most  irritating  ground  of  his 
opposition  to  a  project  backed  up  by  the  tremendous 
force  of  the  pontiff  and  the  curia.  He  would  prefer  to 
speak  of  the  declaration  of  the  infallibility  dogma  as 
contrary  to  a  wise  opportunism  than  to  declare  doubts 
about  the  truth  of  the  dogma.  We  conclude,  then,  that 
it  is  every  way  probable  that  the  area  of  real  doubt  was 
much  larger  than  that  which  came  to  manifestation 
among  the  bishops  of  the  minority  prior  to  the  Vatican 
assembly.  Certainly  within  the  assembly  not  a  few  of 
them  expressed  themselves  in  terms  which  import  that 
they  doubted  the  dogma  itself  to  which  they  were  asked 
to  subscribe.  Their  arguments  were  arguments  not 
merely  against  the  advisability  of  declaring  infallibility, 
but  such  as  hold  against  the  truth  of  infallibility.  How- 
ever, as  a  party  the  minority  never  escaped  the  disad- 
vantage resulting  from  the  timid  appeal  to  inoppor- 
tunism.  There  was  no  sufficient  threat  of  bad  conse- 
quences involved  in  a  standpoint  of  that  kind  to  deter  a 
resolute  majority  from  pressing  on  to  the  full  execution 
of  their  scheme.  A  tense  struggle,  nevertheless,  was 
made  by  the  minority  both  within  and  without  the  coun- 
cil. They  appealed  with  good  effect  to  various  historical 
passages  which  rationally  may  be  considered  as  barring 
out  the  new  dogmas.  They  emphasized  the  drastic  na- 
ture of  a  conciliar  action  which,  at  so  late  a  period  in  the 
history  of  the  Church,  should  take  a  school  opinion  and 
impose  it  upon  the  faithful  under  stress  of  anathema. 
Finally,  they  contended  that  for  the  proposed  dogmas  the 
substantial  unanimity,  which  ought  always  to  go  before 


PAPAL  ABSOLUTISM  117 

creedal  prescriptions,  was  wanting.  That  they  had  a 
fair  warrant  for  this  last  contention  is  shown  by  the 
record  of  the  council.  At  the  preliminary  vote  on  the 
constitution  relative  to  the  Church,  July  13,  eighty-eight 
members  declared  themselves  for  the  negative,  and  sixty- 
two,  some  of  whom,  however,  were  stanch  infallibilists, 
gave  a  qualified  affirmative  vote.  The  number  deciding 
unqualifiedly  for  the  affirmative  was  four  hundred  and 
fifty-one.  Of  the  eighty-eight  who  had  voted  in  the  neg- 
ative, fifty-six  declared,  in  a  final  missive  which  they 
sent  to  the  pope,  that  they  still  adhered  to  their  judg- 
ment, but  would  not  appear  at  the  public  session  ap- 
pointed for  the  eighteenth  of  July.  At  that  session  five 
hundred  and  thirty-three  votes  were  given  for  the  affirm- 
ative. In  itself  this  is  no  insignificant  number.  But 
when  due  account  is  taken  of  the  territories  which  lay 
back  of  the  minority  bishops,  and  it  is  remembered  that 
four  fifths  of  those  finally  giving  their  voice  for  the  vic- 
torious dogmas  were  composed  of  Italian  bishops,  car- 
dinals, officers  of  the  curia,  and  apostolic  vicars,  it  will 
be  recognized  that  the  decrees  of  the  Vatican  Council 
were  representative  rather  of  a  party  in  the  Church  than 
of  the  Church. 

Though    the    debate    was    mainly    relative    to    the" 
dogma    of    papal    infallibility,    the    formulated    dogma 
on    the    administrative    supremacy    of    the    pope    was 
of    no    less    importance.       Indeed,    it    may    be    con- 
tended with  a  fair  show  of  reason  that  the  latter  was; 
the  more  important  of  the  two.    Besides  implicitly  assertA 
ing  infallibility,  it  explicitly  affirmed  that  the  pope  is  in- 
vested with  a  perfectly  unlimited  jurisdiction  and  power, 
of  control  .in  the  Church.     It  is  impossible  to  imagine 


iig  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

language  more  emphatically  expressive  of  absolute  rule 
than  the  following:  "Since  by  the  divine  right  of  apos- 
tolic primacy  the  Roman  pontiff  is  placed  over  the  uni- 
versal Church,  we  teach  and  declare  that  he  is  the 
supreme  judge  of  the  faithful,  and  that  in  all  causes,  the 
decision  of  which  belongs  to  the  Church,  recourse  may 
be  had  to  his  tribunal,  and  that  none  may  reopen  the 
judgment  of  the  apostolic  see,  than  whose  authority 
there  is  no  greater,  nor  can  any  lawfully  review  its  judg- 
ment. Wherefore  they  err  from  the  right  course  who 
assert  that  it  is  lawful  to  appeal  from  the  judgments  of 
Roman  pontiffs  to  an  ecumenical  council,  as  to  an  au- 
thority higher  than  that  of  the  Roman  pontiff.  If,  then, 
any  shall  say  that  the  Roman  pontiff  has  the  office  merely 
of  inspection  or  direction,  and  not  full  and  supreme 
power  of  jurisdiction  over  the  universal  Church,  not 
only  in  things  which  belong  to  faith  and  morals,  but  also 
in  those  which  relate  to  the  discipline  and  government 
spread  throughout  the  world;  or  assert  that  he  possesses 
merely  the  principal  part,  and  not  all  the  fullness  of  this 
supreme  power;  or  that  this  power  which  he  enjoys  is 
not  ordinary  and  immediate,  both  over  each  and  all  the 
churches,  and  over  each  and  all  the  pastors  and  the  faith- 
ful: let  him  be  anathema." 

A  power  thus  ordinary  and  immediate  over  every 
church  and  every  individual,  what  else  is  it  than  a  power 
to  which  the  thought  of  constitutional  limitations  is 
utterly  foreign?  what  else  than  a  power  to  which  the 
whole  body  of  officials  in  the  Church,  from  the  lowest  to 
the  highest,  is  purely  instrumental?  what  else  than  a 
power  as  remote  from  the  possibility  of  lawful  challenge 
as  would  be  the  authority  of  incarnate  Deity? 


PAPAL  ABSOLUTISM  119 

The  decree  on  infallibility  was  formulated  in  these 
words :  "We  teach  and  define  that  it  is  a  dogma  divinely 
revealed:  that  the  Roman  pontiff,  when  he  speaks  ex 
cathedra,  that  is,  when  in  discharge  of  the  office  of  pastor 
and  doctor  of  all  Christians,  by  virtue  of  his  supreme 
apostolic  authority,  he  defines  a  doctrine  regarding  faith 
and  morals  to  be  held  by  the  universal  Church,  by  the 
divine  assistance  promised  to  him  in  blessed  Peter,  is 
possessed  of  that  infallibility  with  which  the  Divine  Re- 
deemer willed  that  his  Church  should  be  endowed  for 
defining  doctrine  regarding  faith  and  morals;  and  that 
therefore  such  definitions  of  the  Roman  pontiff  are  irre- 
formable  of  themselves,  and  not  from  the  consent  of 
the  Church.  But  if  anyone — which  may  God  avert — 
presume  to  contradict  this  our  definition:  let  him  be/ 
anathema." 

Taken  with  the  foregoing  this  decree  evidently  makes 
the  pope  absolutely  the  whole  Church  in  respect  of  au- 
thority. If  he  commands  none  can  say  him  nay  as 
regards  outward  obedience.  If  he  imposes  beliefs,  none 
can  say  him  nay  as  regards  inward  assent.  Formally, 
to  be  sure,  his  right  to  impose  beliefs  lies  within  the 
bounds  of  faith  and  morals.  But  who  has  the  preroga- 
tive to  fix  those  bounds?  Manifestly  none  other  than 
the  supreme  master,  whose  authority  is  ordinary  and 
immediate  over  all  the  faithful,  and  is  not  subject  to 
contradiction  by  any  finite  power  whatever.  Moreover, 
it  is  not  to  be  overlooked  that,  apart  from  the  liability  to 
arbitrary  extension,  the  bounds  of  faith  and  morals  are 
exceedingly  comprehensive.  There  is  comparatively  lit- 
tle in  all  the  great  practical  concerns  of  life  that  does  not 
touch  more  or  less  directly  the  one  domain  or  the  other. 


lao  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

As  respects  the  phrase  ex  cathedra,  it  is  undoubtedly  the 
approved  judgment  among  Roman  Catholic  scholars  that 
this  covers  not  only  decrees  formally  addressed  to  the 
whole  Church,  but  also  decrees  and  teachings  which, 
though  addressed  to  only  a  part  of  the  faithful,  must  be 
regarded  as  meant  for  all,  or  which  could  not  well  apply 
to  one  part  to  the  exclusion  of  another.1 

The  attachment  of  anathemas  to  the  Vatican  decrees  is, 
of  course,  an  indifferent  matter  to  an  outsider.  At  least 
the  meeting  of  them  in  the  text  produces  no  more  serious 
effect  upon  him  than  does  an  instance  of  profane  swear- 
ing in  a  connection  where  he  has  every  reason  to  expect 
its  emergence.  It  should  be  said,  however,  to  the  credit 
of  certain  members  of  the  council  that  they  expressed  a 
very  considerable  aversion  to  the  Roman  custom  of  mul- 
tiplying anathemas.2  They  evidently  felt  that  such  a 
custom  was  better  suited  to  the  court  of  Caiaphas  than 
to  an  assembly  of  the  professed  followers  of  the  Jesus 
who  called  to  blessing  rather  than  to  cursing.  It  does 
not  appear,  nevertheless,  that  the  council  was  moved  to 
a  sparing  use  of  the  empty  thunderbolts.  Though  it 
closed  with  unfinished  business,  it  had  already  braced  its 
decisions  with  more  than  a  score  of  anathemas.  Pos- 
sibly, had  it  reached  the  end  of  its  contemplated  program, 
it  would  have  rivaled  the  extraordinary  record  of  the 
Council  of  Trent  in  this  matter.  The  latter  assembly 
gave  expression  to  a  genuine  sacerdotal  consciousness  by 
promulgating  thirty-three  anathemas  in  connection  with 
the  theme  of  justification  and  ninety-three  in  relation  to 
the  various  topics  of  sacramental  theory. 

1  Scheeben,  Handbuch  der  Katholischen  Dogmatik,  I.  228,  229;  Palmieri, 
Tractatus  de  Romano  Pontifice,  p.  716. 

2  Granderath,  II.  381,  382,  385,  416,  420,  473. 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  121 

V. — DEVELOPMENTS  FOLLOWING  THE  VATICAN 
COUNCIL 

\ 

The  triumph  of  the  Ultramontane  program  left  the  \ 

bishops  of  the  minority  in  a  very  unenviable  plight.  To 
accept  the  decisions  of  the  council  would  mean  acquies- 
cence in  what  their  judgment  pronounced  to  be  an  un- 
warrantable dogmatic  revolution.  On  the  other  hand, 
rejection  of  those  decisions,  besides  involving  a  total  de- 
struction of  their  official  standing,  would  expose  them 
to  the  charge  of  indulging  in  that  rationalizing  temper 
and  lack  of  submission  to  constituted  authority  which 
they  had  been  accustomed  to  emphasize  as  the  capital 
fault  of  Protestantism.  By  their  admission  of  the  infalli- 
bility of  the  Church  they  were  logically  bound  to  accept 
the  decrees  of  the  council,  unless  there  was  substantial 
ground  for  the  judgment  that  the  Church  would  deny 
to  the  council  the  character  of  a  free  ecumenical  assembly, 
or,  at  least,  question  whether  its  decisions  relative  to 
papal  prerogatives  had  commanded  that  moral  unanimity 
which  may  properly  be  adjudged  requisite  for  the  pro- 
mulgation of  dogmas  of  the  faith.  But  most  of  them 
speedily  drew  the  inference  that  they  could  not  trust  to 
such  means  of  relief,  and  accordingly  made  their  sub- 
mission. A  few  hesitated  for  a  period  to  drink  the  cup 
so  nauseating  to  their  spirits,  and  meanwhile  put  words 
on  record  which  could  only  serve  to  emphasize  the  depth 
of  their  final  abasement  before  arbitrary  authority.  This\ 
was  the  case  with  Hefele.  Second  to  no  man  in  the  coun-  \ 
cil  in  respect  of  historical  knowledge,  he  saw  that  the 
Vatican  decrees  were  refuted  by  unimpeachable  facts./ 


122  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

/ 

How  deeply  his  soul  revolted  against  the  demand  to  sub- 
scribe to  them  is  abundantly  indicated  in  his  correspond- 
ence. Thus  he  wrote,  September  14,  1870:  "To  recog- 
nize as  divinely  revealed  something  which  is  not  true  in 
itself,  let  him  do  it  who  can,  I  cannot."  Again  he  de- 
clared, November  u,  in  the  same  year:  "Here  in  Rot- 
tenburg  I  can  as  little  conceal  from  myself  as  I  could  in 
Rome,  that  the  new  dogma  lacks  a  true  biblical  and  tra- 
ditional foundation,  and  injures  the  Church  immensely, 
so  that  she  has  never  suffered  a  more  bitter  or  deadly 
stroke."  In  the  same  communication  he  gave  a  clear 
intimation  of  his  judgment  on  the  course  of  the  German 
episcopate,  in  speaking  of  it  as  a  body  "which  has 
changed  its  conviction  overnight,  and  in  part  gone  over 
to  a  very  zealous  and  persecuting  infallibilism."  With 
undiminished  bitterness  of  spirit  he  wrote,  January  25, 
1871 :  "Unhappily  I  must  say  with  Schulte,  'I  lived 
many  years  grossly  deceived.'  I  believed  I  was  serving 
the  Catholic  Church,  and  I  served  the  caricature  which 
Romanism  and  Jesuitism  have  made  out  of  it.  First  in 
Rome  it  became  thoroughly  clear  to  me  that  what  one 
aims  after  and  practices  there  has  only  the  appearance 
and  the  name  of  Christianity,  only  the  husk;  the  kernel 
has  disappeared,  and  all  is  totally  externalized."1  With 
/this  strange  preface  to  submission  we  may  compare  that 
/  furnished  by  Strossmayer,  Bishop  of  Bosnia  and  Syr- 
i  mien,  confessedly  one  of  the  most  accomplished  orators 
;  in  the  Vatican  assembly.  Writing  to  Professor  Rein- 
kens,  October  27,  1870,  he  said:  "My  conviction  which 
I  am  ready  to  maintain  before  the  judgment  seat  of 
God,  as  I  maintained  it  in  Rome,  is  steadfastly  and  un- 

1  Schulte,  Der  Altkatholicismus,  pp.  223-228. 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  123 

waveringly  this :  that  the  Vatican  Council  lacked  the 
freedom  necessary  to  make  it  a  true  council,  or  to  justify 
it  to  fashion  decrees  suited  to  bind  the  conscience  of  the 
entire  Catholic  world.  The  evidences  for  this  lie  before 
the  eyes  of  the  whole  world.  The  order  of  business,  as 
first  drawn  up,  was  a  product  of  an  absolutism  which 
completely  contradicts  the  spirit  of  Christianity  and  the 
true  organism  of  the  Church.  .  .  .  The  second  order 
of  business  was  manifestly  designed  to  block  the  way  to 
that  freedom  which  individual  bishops  had  used  in  spite 
of  the  first  order  of  business.  .  .  .  Everything  which 
is  calculated  to  serve  as  a  guarantee  of  freedom  in  par- 
liamentary discussion  was  most  carefully  excluded ; 
everything  adapted  to  make  a  discussion  instrumental 
to  a  predetermined  opinion  was  employed  in  a  most 
lavish,  and  one  may  say,  a  most  shameless,  way.  And 
finally,  as  even  this  did  not  seem  to  suffice,  advance  was 
made  to  open  violation  of  that  ancient  Catholic  maxim : 
quod  semper,  quod  ubique,  quod  ab  omnibus.  In  a  word, 
the  most  naked  and  abhorrent  employment  of  papal  in- 
fallibility was  necessary,  in  order  to  make  possible  the 
elevation  of  infallibility  to  a  dogma."  In  June  of  the 
following  year  the  bishop  showed  that  his  judgment  had  •• 
undergone  no  revision  by  penning  these  words :  "If  ever  • 
in  history  an  assembly  was  precisely  the  opposite  of  what 
it  ought  to  have  been,  that  was  the  case  with  the  Vatican 
Council.  All  that  could  happen  to  compromise  the  voca4 
tion  of  the  council,  and  to  make  it  unworthy  of  the  assist- 
ance of  the  Holy  Spirit,  occurred  in  fullest  measure."1^ 
Such  are  some  of  the  more  notable  specimens  of  the  in- 
ward protests  with  which  the  defeated  bishops  approached 

1  Schulte,  Der  Altkatholicismus,  pp.  251-255. 


124  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

the  ordeal  of  prostrating  themselves  before  the  advancing 
car  of  papal  absolutism. 

While  the  opposition  of  the  bishops  ended  in  abase- 
ment, there  were  Roman  Catholics  in  whom  the  union  of 
scholarship  and  conscience  formed  an  insuperable  barrier 
against  the  acceptance  of  the  Vatican  dogmas.  Out  of 
their  midst  came  the  practical  protest  which  took  on  the 
form  of  the  Old  Catholic  movement,  in  which  an  attempt 
was  made  to  present  the  model  of  a  communion  essen- 
tially Catholic  but  free  from  Roman  accretions.  In  1873 
the  movement  obtained  episcopal  organization  through 
the  instrumentality  of  the  Jansenist  Church  in  Holland. 
As  respects  numbers  the  Old  Catholics  can  scarcely  be 
said  to  have  inaugurated  a  formidable  schism,  though 
their  adherents  were  rated  ere  long  above  a  hundred 
thousand.  Their  work,  however,  was  far  from  being 
void  of  significance.  Favored  with  a  band  of  accom- 
plished and  energetic  scholars — such  as  Dollinger, 
Friedrich,  Huber,  Reinkens,  Michelis,  Reusch,  Langen, 
and  Schulte — they  achieved  a  work  in  historical  criticism 
well  adapted  to  be  a  fruitful  source  of  influence  in  any 
domain  from  which  scientific  scholarship  has  not  virtu- 
ally been  banished.  Within  this  group  Dollinger,  who, 
if  he  did  not  take  an  active  part  in  the  organization  of 
the  Old  Catholic  movement,  gave  it  his  countenance, 
was  doubtless  the  most  interesting  and  masterful  person- 
ality. Unmoved  alike  by  the  extreme  of  censure  and  by 
flattering  solicitations,  he  continued  to  express  himself 
as  occasion  required  in  words  which  remind  not  a  little 
of  the  hardy  spirit  which  rebuked  hierarchical  pretense 
in  the  sixteenth  century.  Writing  in  1871,  on  the  eve 
of  his  excommunication,  he  thus  repelled  the  proposal  of 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  125 

submission  to  the  infallibility  tenet:  "As  Christian,  as 
theologian,  as  historian,  as  citizen,  I  cannot  accept  this 
doctrine.  I  cannot  do  so  as  a  Christian,  because  it  is 
incompatible  with  the  spirit  of  the  gospel,  and  with  the 
lucid  sayings  of  Christ  and  the  apostles ;  it  simply  wishes 
to  establish  the  kingdom  of  this  world,  which  Christ 
declined  to  do,  and  to  possess  the  sovereignty  over  the 
congregations,  which  Peter  refused  for  everyone  else,  as 
well  as  for  himself.  I  cannot  do  so  as  a  theologian,  be- 
cause the  whole  genuine  tradition  of  the  Church  stands 
irreconcilably  opposed  to  it.  I  cannot  do  so  as  an  his- 
torian, because  as  such  I  know  that  the  persistent  en- 
deavor to  realize  this  theory  of  a  universal  sovereignty 
has  cost  Europe  streams  of  blood,  distracted  and  ruined 
whole  countries,  shaken  to  its  foundations  the  beautiful 
organic  edifice  of  the  constitution  of  the  older  Church, 
and  begotten,  nursed,  and  maintained  the  worst  abuses 
in  the  Church.  Finally,  I  must  reject  it  as  a  citizen, 
because  with  its  claims  on  the  submission  of  states  and 
monarchs  and  the  whole  political  order  of  things  to  the 
papal  power,  and  through  the  exceptional  position 
claimed  by  it  for  the  clergy,  it  lays  the  foundation  for 
an  endless  and  fatal  discord  between  the  State  and  the 
Church,  between  the  clergy  and  the  laity."  In  1879  ne 
testified :  "Having  devoted  during  the  last  nine  years 
my  time  principally  to  the  renewed  study  of  all  the  ques- 
tions connected  with  the  history  of  the  popes  and  the 
councils,  and,  I  may  say,  gone  over  the  whole  ground  of 
ecclesiastical  history,  the  result  is  that  the  proofs  of  the 
falsehood  of  the  Vatican  decrees  amount  to  a  demonstra- 
tion. When  I  am  told  that  I  must  swear  to  the  truth 
of  those  doctrines  my  feeling  is  just  as  if  I  were  asked  to 


126  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

swear  that  two  and  two  make  five  and  not  four."  The 
following  year,  in  response  to  a  virtual  request  to  sacri- 
fice intellect  on  the  altar  of  dogma,  he  wrote:  "If  I 
should  do  so,  in  a  question  which  is  for  the  historical 
eye  perfectly  clear  and  unambiguous,  there  would  then 
no  longer  be  for  me  any  such  thing  as  historical  truth 
and  certainty;  I  should  then  have  to  suppose  that  my 
whole  life  long  I  had  been  in  a  world  of  dizzy  illusion, 
and  that  in  historical  matters  I  am  altogether  incapable 
of  distinguishing  truth  from  fable  and  falsehood.  The 
very  ground  would  thus  be  taken  away  from  under  my 
feet,  and  that  too  for  my  religious  views ;  since  even  our 
religion  is  founded,  of  course,  on  historical  facts."1 

Within  the  party  which  had  cried  up  papal  absolutism 
before  the  council  the  victory  of  their  cause  cannot  be 
said  to  have  wrought  appreciably  in  favor  of  moderation 
of  spirit.  One  or  another  representative,  it  is  true,  in 
the  face  of  an  adverse  public  sentiment,  may  have  been 
interested  to  abridge  rather  than  to  magnify  the  import 
of  the  Vatican  dogmas.  But,  on  the  whole,  the  party 
which  previously  had  been  prodigal  of  tributes  to  the 
papal  dignity  went  on  strewing  incense  with  a  lavish 
hand.  The  pontificate  of  Leo  XIII  was  drawing  near 
to  a  close  before  the  least  sign  of  a  diminished  store  of 
the  grateful  offerings  was  made  apparent.  Within  a 
year  from  the  council  the  Civilta  Cattolica  gave  a  place 
to  this  high  strain :  "The  pope  is  the  chief  justice  of  the 
civil  law.  In  him  the  two  powers,  the  spiritual  and  the 
temporal,  meet  together  as  in  their  head;  for  he  is  the 
vicar  of  Christ,  who  is  not  only  eternal  priest,  but  also 
King  of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords.  .  .  .  The  pope  by 

1  Declarations  and  Letters  on  the  Vatican  Decrees,  pp.  103,  104,  125,  133. 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  127 

virtue  of  his  high  dignity  is  at  the  head  of  both  powers."1 
In  a  later  number  we  are  informed  that  the  two  great 
centers  of  supernatural  virtue  on  earth  are  Lourdes  and 
the  Vatican.  "In  both  places  it  is  understood  and  felt 
that  Jesus  Christ  lives  and  works  from  God — invisible 
there  in  the  person  of  his  beloved  mother  glorious  in 
heaven,  visible  here  in  the  person  of  his  vicar  humbled 
upon  earth."2  The  same  level  of  description  is  attained 
in  the  following  from  Liberatore:  "The  pope  sums  up 
in  himself  all  the  virtue  of  the  pastoral  ministry  upon 
earth,  in  the  double  function  of  maintaining  doctrine  un- 
shaken and  keeping  alive  the  practice  of  the  gospel. 
Take  away  the  pope  and  the  Church  will  speedily  go  to 
pieces;  the  world  will  fall  back  into  the  ancient  super- 
stition and  into  the  squalid  corruption  of  paganism."3 
Archbishop  Manning,  though  writing  under  conditions 
which  admonished  to  restraint,  did  not  fall  much  behind 
the  Italian  apologist  when  he  penned  these  lines :  "I  am 
not  afraid  of  defending  the  condensed  statement  of 
Donoso  Cortes:  'The  history  of  civilization  is  the  his- 
tory of  Christianity;  the  history  of  Christianity  is  the 
history  of  the  Church ;  the  history  of  the  Church  is  the  his- 
tory of  the  pontiffs.'  "4  In  the  treatise  on  the  papacy  by 
Palmieri  equivalent  forms  of  statement  occur.  "The 
Roman  pontiff,"  he  says,  "has  not  only  the  supreme 
executive  power,  but  also  the  supreme  legislative  and 
judicial,  and  that  belongs  to  him  independently  of  the 
consent  and  will  of  the  Church."  Though  he  cannot 
rightly  abolish  the  episcopal  office,  he  is  competent  to 
take  away  from  any  number  of  bishops  their  jurisdiction 

1  Civiltk  Cattolica,  March  18,  1871.  *  Series  XV,  vol.  viii,  p.  547. 

3  La  Chiesa  e  lo  Stato,  p.  432. 

4  The  Vatican  Decrees  in  their  Bearing  on  Civil  Allegiance,  1875,  p.  133. 


ia8  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

and  to  install  others  in  their  places.  No  canons  can  bind 
him.  "In  so  far  as  they  proceed  from  other  bishops  they 
cannot  bind  the  Roman  pontiff;  for  the  entire  remainder 
of  the  body  is  inferior  to  the  head,  but  the  inferior  can- 
not bind  the  superior;  in  so  far,  indeed,  as  they  proceed 
from  the  Roman  pontiff  they  cannot  bind  him  again; 
because  no  one  can  exercise  coactive  power  against  him- 
self, and  they  are  not  able  to  bind  his  successors  since 
these  possess  the  same  power."  In  case  the  pontiff  speaks 
ex  cathedra,  there  is  no  occasion  to  go  back  of  his  pro- 
nouncement and  to  inquire  into  its  antecedents.  "Even 
if  examination  is  necessary  that  a  definition  may  be  made, 
this  is  known  by  itself,  that  is,  by  its  own  marks;  to 
wit,  if  it  is  given  forth  by  the  Roman  pontiff  as  doctor 
of  the  Church  and  defined  as  a  doctrine  of  faith  or 
morals  to  be  held  by  the  universal  Church."1  So  the 
leisure  of  the  world  is  most  happily  provided  for.  All 
men  may  remain  quietly  in  their  seats,  and  wait  for  the 
pontifical  voice  to  speak  the  illuminating  and  final  sen- 
tence. If  we  may  trust  Philipp  Hergenrother  that  voice 
is  infallible  in  such  a  matter  as  the  canonization  of  saints, 
since  this  falls  within  the  domain  of  "dogmatic  facts," 
where  it  will  not  answer  to  have  an  erring  pontiff.2 

In  that  section  of  his  pontificate  which  followed  the 
Vatican  Council  Pius  IX  found  rather  conspicuous  occa- 
sions, both  in  his  relations  to  the  government  of  Prussia 
and  to  the  kingdom  of  Italy,  to  manifest  the  order  of 
papal  consciousness  that  dwelt  in  him.  As  was  noticed 
in  another  connection,  in  the  course  of  his  contention 
with  the  former — the  so-called  Kulturkampf — he  illus- 

1  Tractatus  de  Romano  Pontifice,  pp.  447,  457,  468,  713. 
•  Kirchenrecht,  p.  277.     Compare  Heinrich,  Lehrbuch  der  Katholischen 
Dogmatik,  p.  74. 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  129 

trated  his  sense  of  pontifical  sovereignty  by  declaring 
certain  laws  of  the  realm  null  and  void.  To  the  latter, 
which  granted  him  inviolability  for  his  person  and  full 
custody  of  his  palaces,  but  otherwise  abolished  his  tem- 
poral rule,  he  refused  all  recognition.  He  declined  to 
tolerate  for  a  moment  the  supposition  that  the  act  by 
which  the  Estates  of  the  Church  had  been  wrested  away 
from  the  vicar  of  Christ  could  ever  be  legitimated.  His 
wrath  against  the  chief  agents  in  the  political  unification 
of  Italy  broke  out  again  and  again  into  envenomed 
speech.  In  what  unmeasured  terms  he  was  disposed  to 
excoriate  Victor  Emmanuel  and  his  associates  may  be 
judged  from  the  following  apocalyptic  passage:  "Woe, 
then,  to  him  and  to  them  who  have  been  the  authors  of 
so  great  scandal.  The  soil  usurped  will  be  as  a  volcano, 
that  threatens  to  devour  the  usurpers  in  its  flames.  The 
petitions  of  millions  of  Catholics  cry  aloud  before 
God,  and  are  echoed  by  those  of  the  protecting  saints 
who  sit  near  to  the  throne  of  the  Omnipotent  him- 
self, and  point  out  to  him  the  profanations,  the  im- 
pieties, the  acts  of  injustice,  and  make  their  appeal  to 
God's  remedies."1 

Aside  from  these  instances  of  wrathful  censure  Pius  IX 
probably  gave  in  his  later  years  no  more  significant  speci- 
men of  his  infallible  sovereignty  than  that  contained  in 
the  extraordinary  honor  which  he  bestowed  upon  Liguori 
in  pronouncing  him  a  Doctor  of  the  Church  (1871).  In 
manifold  ways  this  was  a  genuine  piece  of  Ultramontane 
administration,  since  Liguori  was  distinguished  by  ex- 
traordinary devotion  to  the  cult  of  the  Virgin,  by  indus- 
trious advocacy  of  the  high  papal  theories,  and  by  such 

1  Cited  by  Gladstone,  Speeches  of  Pius  IX,  p.  19. 


130  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

conspicuous  affiliation  with  the  casuistry  of  the  Jesuits 
that  they  could  recognize  in  his  elevation  a  pontifical 
approval  of  their  order  as  well  as  a  deserved  recompense 
for  their  exceptional  services  to  the  cause  of  papal  absolu- 
tism. Thus,  to  crown  Liguori  was  a  consistent  supple- 
ment to  the  work  of  the  Vatican  Council.  As  such 
naturally  it  claimed  very  scanty  respect  from  those  who 
•were  not  well  affected  toward  the  proceedings  of  the 
council.  Dollinger  declared  it  the  greatest  monstrosity 
that  had  ever  occurred  in  the  domain  of  theological  doc- 
trine— an  unmitigated  scandal,  thus  to  raise  to  the  plane 
of  an  Augustine  "a  man  whose  false  morals,  perverse 
worship  of  the  Virgin,  constant  use  of  the  grossest  fables 
and  forgeries,  make  his  writings  a  storehouse  of  errors 
and  lies."1  At  a  later  date  Dollinger  gave  a  pretty  fair 
justification  of  this  strong  impeachment  of  Liguori's 
trustworthiness.2 

In  Leo  XIII  (1878-1903)  it  is  quite  just  to  recognize 
a  man  of  larger  learning,  wider  outlook,  and  more 
prudent  regard  for  the  demands  of  skilled  diplomacy 
than  was  Pius  IX.  But  whatever  tribute  may  be  paid 
to  his  personal  accomplishments  and  official  aptitudes, 
the  fact  is  not  to  be  ignored  that  his  pontificate  was  in 
a  straight  line  with  that  of  his  predecessor  as  regards  the 
distinctive  features  of  Ultramontane  administration.  In 
the  first  place,  it  was  marked  by  industrious  patronage  of 
sentimental  devotion.  We  greatly  doubt  whether  any 
pope  besides  in  the  whole  list  has  made  so  ample  a  record 
in  this  matter.  In  repeated  messages,  many  of  them 
addressed  to  the  whole  Roman  Catholic  world,  Leo  XIII 

1  Declarations  and  Letters  on  the  Vatican  Decrees,  pp.  119,  120. 
*  Dollinger  und  Reusch,  Moralstreitigkeiten  in  der  romisch-katholischen 
Kirche,  1889.    See  in  particular  I.  396-412. 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  131 

took  pains  formally  to  commend  the  cult  of  the  Virgin. 
Moreover,  he  was  conspicuously  alert  to  magnify  the 
virtue  of  her  good  offices  in  messages  having  a  main 
relation  to  other  themes.  It  would  be  difficult  to  imagine 
a  deeper  sense  of  dependence  upon  measureless  might 
and  grace  than  comes  to  expression  in  such  declarations 
as  the  following:  "In  the  heart  of  the  Romans  is  the 
ancient  devotion  to  the  mother  of  the  Saviour;  but  now, 
in  consideration  of  the  more  pressing  peril,  let  us  recur 
more  frequently  and  with  intenser  ardor  to  her  who  has 
crushed  the  serpent  and  conquered  all  heresies."  "We 
consider  that  no  means  could  be  more  efficacious  than 
our  gaining  by  the  religious  practice  of  the  veneration 
due  to  her,  the  favor  of  the  sublime  mother  of  God,  the 
Virgin  Mary,  depositary  of  our  peace  with  God  and  dis- 
penser of  celestial  graces,  who  has  been  placed  at  the 
highest  summit  of  heavenly  power  and  glory  that  she 
might  aid  mankind  on  its  way  of  toil  and  peril  toward 
the  eternal  city.  It  has  always  been  the  principal  and 
most  solemn  care  of  Catholics,  in  troublous  affairs  and 
uncertain  times,  to  flee  to  Mary  for  refuge  and  to  repose 
upon  her  maternal  goodness.  By  this  is  plainly  shown 
not  only  the  most  certain  hope,  but  also  the  confidence 
which  the  Catholic  Church  has  always  placed  with  good 
reason  in  the  mother  of  God."  "We  should  take  refuge 
in  Mary,  in  her  whom  the  Church  rightly  and  deservedly 
calls  salvation-bringer,  helper,  and  deliverer."  "We 
wish  that,  constantly  and  without  interruption,  recourse 
should  be  had  in  the  Church  to  God  and  to  the  great 
Virgin  of  the  Rosary,  the  strongest  aid  of  Christians,  at 
whose  power  tremble  even  the  magnates  of  the  abyss." 
"The  most  holy  Virgin,  as  she  was  the  bearer  of  Jesus 


13*  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

Christ,  is  the  mother  of  all  Christians,  whom  indeed  she 
bore  at  Mount  Calvary  amid  the  supreme  pains  of  the 
Redeemer."  "As  no  one  can  come  to  the  supreme  Father 
except  through  the  Son,  so,  it  might  almost  be  said,  no 
one  can  come  to  Christ  except  through  the  mother." 
"All  grace  [so  reads  an  approved  citation]  which  is  com- 
municated to  this  age  has  a  triple  process.  For  in  com- 
pletest  order  it  is  dispensed  from  God  to  Christ,  from 
Christ  to  the  Virgin,  from  the  Virgin  unto  us."1  Besides 
rendering  these  direct  tributes  to  the  Virgin,  Leo  XIII 
endeavored  to  manifest  a  worshipful  heart  toward  her  by 
the  expenditure  of  unexampled  zeal  in  promoting  reli- 
gious devotion  to  her  spouse.2  The  motive  for  the  ex- 
penditure finds  clear  expression  in  these  words  of  the 
pontiff:  "The  fact  that  the  worship  of  Saint  Joseph  is 
advanced  daily  and  that  affectionate  devotion  to  him  is 
on  the  increase  may  certainly  be  expected  to  be  pleasing 
and  acceptable  to  Mary,  the  immaculate  mother  of  God, 
whose  favor  we  are  strongly  confident  of  earning  by. 
this  means."3  With  this  absorbing  cultivation  of  the 
worship  of  the  saints  Leo  XIII  combined,  as  we  should 
expect,  a  high  estimate  of  the  religious  efficacy  of  the 
relics  of  the  saints.  A  sufficient  token  of  his  profound 
appreciation  of  these  tangible  sources  of  piety  appears 
in  his  approving  reference  to  the  verdict  of  John  of 
Damascus :  "The  bodies  of  the  saints  are  perennial  foun- 
tains in  the  Church,  from  which,  like  streams  of  salva- 
tion, celestial  gifts  and  all  those  things  of  which  we 

1  See  in  order  Epist.  ad  Card.  Vicarium  Monaco  la  Valetta,  June  26, 
1878;  Encyc.,    Sept.    i,    1883;  Encyc.,    Aug.    30,    1884;  Epist.    ad   Card. 
Vicarium  Parocchi,  Oct.  31,   1886;  Encyc.,  Aug.   15,   1889;  Encyc.,  Sept. 
22,  1891;  Encyc.,  Sept.  8,  1894. 

2  Encyc.,  Aug.  15,  1889;  Litterae  Apostol.,  Jan.  28,  1890,  June  3,  1890, 
March  3,  1891. 

3  Littene  Apostol.  de  Festo  S.  losephi,  June  3,  1890. 


PAPAL  ABSOLUTISM  133 

stand  in  special  need  are  poured  forth  to  the  Christian 
peoples."1 

In  relation  to  a  second  feature  of  Ultramontane  ad- 
ministration Leo  XIII  kept  well  up  to  the  level  of  his 
predecessor.  He  was  careful  to  maintain  a  high  strain 
as  respects  the  prerogatives  of  the  Roman  pontiff.  In 
dealing  with  governments,  it  is  true,  he  had  too  much 
discretion  to  provoke  defiant  or  contemptuous  responses 
by  assuming  the  lordly  tone  of  the  ecclesiastical  dictators 
of  the  middle  ages.  But,  judged  by  their  logical  impli- 
cations, the  claims  which  underlie  his  declarations  could 
not  be  accounted  modest  even  when  placed  alongside 
those  of  an  Innocent  III.  As  appears  in  an  encyclical 
already  cited  at  some  length,  he  makes  the  instructions 
of  the  Roman  pontiff  the  indisputable  standard  both  of 
belief  and  conduct.  "As  a  union  of  minds,"  he  says, 
"requires  perfect  agreement  in  one  faith,  so  it  requires 
that  wills  be  entirely  subject  and  obedient  to  the  Church 
and  to  the  Roman  pontiff,  as  to  God.  .  .  .  Both  that 
which  ought  to  be  believed  and  that  which  ought  to  be 
done  the  Church  by  divine  right  teaches,  and  in  the 
Church  the  supreme  pontiff.  Wherefore  the  pontiff 
ought  to  be  able  to  judge,  in  accordance  with  his  author- 
ity, what  the  divine  oracles  contain,  what  doctrines  ac- 
cord and  what  disagree  with  them;  and  in  like  manner 
to  show  what  things  are  honorable,  what  are  base.  .  .  . 
It  belongs  to  the  pontiff  not  only  to  rule  the  Church,  but 
in  general  so  to  order  the  action  of  Christian  citizens  that 
they  may  be  in  suitable  accord  with  the  hope  of  obtaining 
eternal  salvation."2  As  a  specimen  of  theocratic  con- 


1  Litterae  Apostol.  de  Inventione  Corpora  S.  Jacobi  M.,  etc.,  Kal.  Nov., 
1884.        *  Encyc.  de  Praecipuis  Civium  Christianorum  Officiis,  Jan.  10,  1890. 


134  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

sciousness  the  above  has  scarcely  been  overmatched  in 
the  whole  history  of  the  papacy.  And  other  utterances 
of  Leo  XIII  are  of  kindred  significance.  We  find  him 
speaking  of  the  pope  as  being  for  all  Catholics  "the  mas- 
ter of  their  faith  and  the  ruler  of  their  consciences."1 
"In  forming  opinions,"  he  says,  "it  is  necessary  to  hold 
whatever  things  the  Roman  pontiffs  have  delivered  or 
shall  deliver,  and  to  profess  them  openly  as  often  as  the 
case  may  demand."2  Again  he  remarks :  "The  Church, 
by  the  will  of  God,  is  a  perfect  society ;  and  as  it  has  its 
own  laws,  so  it  has  its  own  magistrates,  properly  dis- 
tinguished as  to  grade  of  authority,  of  whom  the  chief 
is  the  Roman  pontiff,  by  divine  right  set  over  the  Church 
and  subject  to  the  authority  and  judgment  of  God 
alone."3  An  expression  in  the  sentimental  order,  but  not 
a  little  significant  of  a  sense  of  official  elevation,  is  con- 
tained in  the  following  words  addressed  by  the  pope  to 
pilgrims  from  Holland  on  occasion  of  the  jubilee  in 
1893:  "If,  in  the  painful  situation  which  we  deplore, 
the  supreme  pontiff  reproduces  the  dolorous  image  of 
Christ  on  Calvary,  it  seems  also  that  he  reproduces  the 
glorious  similitude  expressed  by  the  divine  oracle,  'And 
I,  if  I  be  lifted  up  from  the  earth,  will  draw  all  men 
unto  myself.'  It  is,  in  truth,  just  and  consoling  to  con- 
sider how  much  love  the  nations  bring  more  and  more 
to  the  holy  see,  from  which  is  derived  in  return  an  ever- 
increasing  abundance  of  saving  benefits."4 

As  respects  a  third  feature  of  Ultramontane  adminis- 
tration Leo  XIII  distinctly  transcended  the  record  of 

1  Epist.  ad  Card.  Nina,  Aug.  27,  1878. 

*  Encyc.  Immortale  Dei,  Nov.  i,  1885. 
1  Allocutio  ad  Cardinal es,  June  i,  1888. 

*  Cited  by  Mgr.  de  T'Serclaes,  Le  Pape  Leon  XIII.   vol.  II,  pp.  618,619. 


PAPAL   ABSOLUTISM  135 

Pius  IX.  No  other  modern  pontiff  has  labored  with 
such  tireless  industry  to  enthrone  over  the  higher  educa- 
tion of  the  Roman  Catholic  world  the  mediaeval  system 
of  philosophy  and  theology.  A  negative  expression  of 
his  zeal  for  this  project  was  given  in  the  condemnation 
visited  upon  the  system  of  Rosmini  (1887),  who  con- 
fessedly stood  in  the  first  rank  of  the  philosophical 
writers  of  Italy  in  the  nineteenth  century.  Why  did 
Leo  XIII  consent  to  crown  the  assault  which  the  Jesuits 
had  kept  up  against  the  teaching  of  this  distinguished 
man  for  a  full  generation?  A  good  part,  at  least,  of 
the  explanation  lies  in  the  fact  that  Rosmini  manifested 
a  measure  of  sympathetic  interest  in  the  modern  philoso- 
phies and  was  not  very  closely  tied  to  the  scholastic 
model.  A  token  of  this  ground  of  censure  appears  in  the 
approving  reference  to  the  study  of  Thomas  Aquinas 
which  was  contained  in  the  epistolary  supplement  to  the 
sentence  published  by  the  Inquisition  against  the  teaching 
of  Rosmini,  and  which  may  safely  be  regarded  as  ac- 
commodated to  the  papal  standpoint.  But  there  is  very 
little  occasion  to  emphasize  this  negative  expression  of 
the  purpose  and  ambition  of  Leo  XIII.  The  positive 
expressions  are  so  full  and  unambiguous  that  no  one  can 
misconstrue  their  import.  In  the  light  of  them  it  is  as 
plain  as  the  day  that  Leo  XIII  considered  it  immensely 
important  to  anchor  Roman  Catholic  scholarship  to  the 
scholastic  philosophy  and  theology  as  embodied  more 
especially  in  the  writings  of  Thomas  Aquinas.  Early  in 
his  pontificate  he  issued  an  encyclical  to  all  the  bishops 
of  the  Catholic  world  for  the  express  purpose  of  com- 
mending the  study  of  the  scholastic  system,  or,  to  speak 
more  precisely,  the  Thomistic  system.  This  was  fol- 


136  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

lowed  by  a  brief  declaring  the  angelic  doctor  patron  of 
all  Roman  Catholic  schools,  as  also  by  numerous  other 
messages  in-  which  the  pontiff  took  pains  to  exalt  the 
merits  of  the  teaching  of  the  great  thirteenth-century 
scholastic.  Indeed,  it  seems  warrantable  to  say  that, 
aside  from  his  efforts  to  promote  the  cult  of  the  Virgin, 
the  pontiff  was  not  more  industriously  devoted  to  any 
project  than  to  that  of  hailing  back  philosophy  and 
theology  to  the  general  type  represented  by  Thomas 
Aquinas.1  And  his  motive  in  all  this  strenuous  endeavor 
was,  of  course,  something  more  substantial  than  the  mere 
gratification  of  personal  fondness  for  an  author.  He 
was  evidently  moved  by  a  keen  sense  of  the  demands  of 
the  scheme  of  papal  absolutism  and  infallibility.  To 
safeguard  this  scheme  he  considered  it  necessary  to  can- 
cel diversities  in  speculative  thought,  and  to  work  toward 
a  homogeneous  system  thoroughly  in  harmony  with  the 
unlimited  sovereignty  of  the  Roman  pontiff.  A  very 
intelligible  indication  that  this  was  the  controlling  con- 
sideration in  his  mind  is  contained  in  the  character  of  the 
tribute  paid  to  Aquinas  in  the  following  sentence :  "That 
most  sapient  doctor  always  proceeds  within  the  limits  of 
the  truth  as  one  who  not  only  never  contends  with  God, 
but  always  adheres  to  him  most  closely  and  obediently, 
whatever  may  be  the  way  in  which  he  discloses  his 
secrets;  as  one,  also,  who  is  not  less  sacredly  obe- 
dient to  the  Roman  pontiff,  and  who  reverences  the 
divine  authority  in  him,  and  holds  that  to  be  subject 

1  See  Encyc.,  Aug.  4,  1879;  Allocutio,  March  7,  1880;  Litterae  Apostol. 
in  forma  brevis,  Aug.  4,  1880;  Epist.  ad  Episcppos  Belgii,  Aug.  3,  1881; 
Oratio,  Jan.  18,  1885;  Epist.  ad  Archiepisc.  Baltimorensem,  April  10,  1887; 
Epist.  ad  Archiepisc.  et  Episc.  Bavanse,  Dec.  22,  1887;  Litterae  Apostol. 
de  Facultate  Theol.,  Dec.  10,  1889;  Litterae  Apostol.  de  Hierarcnia  in 
Mexico  Ordinanda.  1891;  Epist.  ad  Card.  Goossens,  March  7,  1894;  Epist. 
ad  Episcopos  Peruvienses,  May  i,  1894. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  137 

to  the  Roman  pontiff  is  altogether  necessary  to  salva- 
tion."1 

No  further  exposition  is  needed  to  show  that  Pius  X 
was  building  on  the  foundation  of  his  predecessor  when, 
in  his  blast  against  "modernism,"  he  gave  command  that 
the  scholastic  philosophy  should  be  made  the  basis  of 
sacred  studies,  and  added  that  by  the  scholastic  philoso- 
phy was  meant  especially  that  form  of  teaching  which 
had  been  transmitted  by  Thomas  Aquinas.2  In  short, 
the  occasion  to  contrast  Leo  XIII  either  with  his  prede- 
cessor or  with  his  successor,  in  respect  of  accommodation 
to  modern  ideas  and  tendencies,  is  very  scanty.  Anyone 
who  looks  beyond  the  form  and  color  imparted  to  his 
communications  by  a  good  degree  of  diplomatic  skill, 
and  studies  the  essential  content  of  his  numerous  instruc- 
tions to  the  faithful,  will  discover  that  he  inculcated  a 
system  saturated  through  and  through  with  premises 
agreeable  to  the  ecclesiasticism  of  the  thirteenth  century. 

VI. — CRITICISM  OF  THE  DOGMA  OF  PAPAL  SUPREMACY 

The  dogma  fails  in  a  double  sense  of  a  biblical  basis, 
and  may  properly  be  described  as  antiscriptural  rather 
than  scriptural.  Within  the  limits  of  exegetical  sobriety 
there  is  no  possibility  of  establishing  the  assumption,  so 
necessary  to  the  dogma,  that  Peter  was  clothed  with  a 
constitutional  primacy,  or  primacy  of  governing  author- 
ity. As  for  the  second  necessary  assumption,  namely, 
the  transference  of  the  supposed  constitutional  primacy 
of  Peter  to  the  Roman  bishop,  a  sane  exegesis  cannot 


1  Epist.  ad  Archiepisc.  et  Episc.  Bavariae,  Dec.  22,  1887. 
8  Encyc.,  Sept.  8,  1907. 


138  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

find  for  it  the  least  semblance  of  a  ground  in  the  Scrip- 
tures. 

Relative  to  the  first  assumption  it  may  be  admitted  that 
Christ  spoke  of  Peter  as  a  foundation,1  though  patristic 
/  opinion  was  largely  inclined  to  the  contrary  conclusion.2 
But  why  did  Christ  speak  of  Peter  as  a  foundation? 
Manifestly  because  of  his  extraordinary  confession.  In 
the  firm  enlightened  confession  of  Jesus  as  the  Christ,  the 
Son  of  the  living  God,  Peter  stood  forth  as  the  right  kind 
of  a  man  to  do  the  work  of  a  founder,  as  a  suitable  stone 
for  the  spiritual  edifice  that  was  to  be  raised  in  the  world. 
In  glad  recognition  of  the  character  revealed  in  the 
illuminated  utterance  of  the  disciple,  Christ  made  his 
response.  It  is  perfectly  gratuitous  to  put  into  that  re- 
sponse any  reference  to  official  or  governmental  pre- 
eminence. The  stress  was  upon  the  character  of  the  true 
confessor,  and  a  perfectly  adequate  meaning  is  given  to 
the  commendatory  words  when  they  are  taken  as  a  vivid 
prophetical  picturing  of  the  work  which  should  ensue 
from  that  character.  The  fulfillment  came  in  the  first 
years  of  the  history  of  the  Christian  Church.  In  that 
season  of  sharp  trial  the  spirit  of  the  heroic  confessor  in 
Peter,  joined  with  natural  aptitudes  for  leadership,  armed 
him  with  superior  might,  and  qualified  him  to  do  a  work 
of  foundation  against  which  the  gates  of  hell  could  not 
prevail.  In  his  strong  declaration  at  Caesarea  Philippi, 
Christ  drew  aside  for  a  moment  the  veil  from  this  lumi- 
nous chapter  in  the  record  of  the  disciple,  and  evidently 
he  did  it  in  order  to  reward  Peter  on  the  spot  for  his 
great  confession.  Had  there  been  an  equal  occasion  to 

»  Matt.  xvi.  18. 

1  For  the  extensive  list  on  that  side  see  Langen,  Das  Vaticanische  Dogma, 
I.  40-49- 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  139 

prophesy  over  the  other  disciples,  Christ  could  have  said 
something  about  their  function  in  the  foundation  of  the 
Church.  Respecting  John  he  could  have  used  words,  in 
consideration  of  the  ultimate  influence  of  this  disciple, 
scarcely  less  emphatic  than  those  addressed  to  Peter ;  and 
had  it  come  within  the  range  of  practical  discourse  to 
speak  of  Paul,  he  could  have  applied  to  him  with  un- 
diminished  emphasis  the  very  same  words  which  were 
addressed  to  the  older  apostle.  Only  a  narrow  and  inter- 
ested exegesis  can  find  occasion  to  take  the  description  of 
Peter  as  a  foundation  in  an  exclusive  sense.  Indeed,  the 
very  Gospel  in  which  the  description  occurs  gives  a  clear 
intimation  that  it  is  not  thus  to  be  taken.  While  speaking 
in  immediate  conjunction  with  Peter's  confession  Christ 
mentioned  him  alone  as  a  bearer  of  the  keys,  and  as  ful- 
filling the  responsible  office  of  binding  and  loosing. 
Nothing  was  said  at  that  point  about  the  other  disciples. 
But  we  know  from  a  subsequent  passage  that  in  the  mind 
of  Christ  the  prerogative  of  the  keys  was  assigned  to  the 
disciples  in  common.  To  all  of  them  he  said:  "Whatx 
things  soever  ye  shall  bind  on  earth  shall  be  bound  in 
heaven :  and  what  things  soever  ye  shall  loose  on  earth 
shall  be  loosed  in  heaven."1  A  plain  suggestion  is  there-/ 
fore  given  that  the  lack  of  reference  on  a  special  occasion 
to  their  function  as  a  foundation  was  in  no  wise  designed 
to  indicate  that  they  were  not  to  fulfill  that  function,  or 
that  one  of  their  number  was  to  achieve  a  fulfillment  of  it 
to  which  the  others  were  not,  in  proportion  to  their  con- 
secrated abilities,  eligible.  There  is  also  in  the  same 
Gospel  a  further  testimony  to  the  fact  that  it  was  quite 
foreign  to  the  mind  of  Christ  to  make  distinctions  among 

1  Matt,  xviii.  18. 


140  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

f 

the  disciples  in  respect  of  essential  prerogatives.     "Ye 

know,"  he  said,  "that  the  rulers  of  the  Gentiles  lord  it 
over  them,  and  their  great  ones  exercise  authority  over 
them.  Not  so  shall  it  be  among  you;  but  whosoever 
would  become  great  among  you  shall  be  your  minister; 
and  whosoever  would  be  first  among  you  shall  be  your 
servant."1  Moreover,  the  total  neglect  of  any  evangelist, 
aside  from  Matthew,  to  reproduce  the  words  descriptive 
of  Peter  as  a  foundation  may  properly  be  taken  as  a 
sign  that  in  the  consciousness  of  the  apostolic  community 
these  words  were  not  understood  to  give  that  apostle 
the  tremendous  preeminence  assigned  to  him  by  Romish 
exegesis. 

If  we  look  beyond  the  Gospels,  there  is  nothing  dis- 
coverable in  the  New  Testament  which  implies  a  consti- 
tutional primacy  in  Peter ;  on  the  contrary,  there  is  much 
that  refutes  the  notion  of  such  a  primacy.  A  certain 
leadership  he  doubtless  exercised,  but  it  was  a  kind  of 
leadership  which  superior  personal  qualities  always  call 
forth,  just  the  kind  which  a  masterful  man  in  a  senate 
or  parliament  naturally  becomes  invested  with,  though  in 
point  of  constitutional  prerogatives  he  remains  precisely 
on  a  level  with  his  colleagues.  No  scrap  of  extant  his- 
tory pictures  for  Peter  any  different  sort  of  leadership. 
It  is  not  made  apparent  that  on  his  own  responsibility 
he  ever  appointed  anyone  to  office  in  the  primitive  Chris- 
tian community,  or  sent  anyone  upon  an  ecclesiastical 
mission.  He  himself  is  said  to  have  been  sent  by  the 
apostles  on  a  mission  to  the  converts  in  Samaria.  In 
connection  with  the  Council  of  Jerusalem  he  is  repre- 
sented to  have  figured  simply  as  one  of  the  chief  speakers, 

1  Matt.  xx.  25,  a6. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  141 

neither  being  asked  to  submit  nor  to  confirm  the  decrees 
which  were  enacted.  In  all  the  Pauline  epistles  there  is 
no  indication  that  the  apostle  to  the  Gentiles  ever  con- 
sidered himself  as  specially  an  agent  of  Peter  or  as  sub- 
ject to  his  direction.  Naturally,  at  an  early  stage  in  his 
ministry  he  took  pains  to  confer  with  one  who  had  been 
so  prominent  in  the  line  of  practical  leadership.  Any 
prudent  and  alert  worker,  anxious  to  make  the  best  of 
the  situation,  would  have  done  likewise.  But  how  remote 
Paul  was  from  the  consciousness  of  any  governmental 
supremacy  of  Peter  is  vividly  indicated  by  the  tone  of  his 
narrative  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians.  As  appears  in 
that  narrative,  he  felt  free  to  withstand  Peter  to  his  face 
on  a  point  of  conduct  or  practical  administration.  Fur- 
thermore, he  signified  in  the  same  narrative,  in  that  he 
described  the  apostle  of  the  circumcision  simply  as  one 
among  several  "reputed  to  be  pillars,"  that  he  knew  noth- 
ing about  him  as  a  monarch  over  the  apostolic  group.  A 
token  of  an  identical  ignorance  was  given  when,  in  cata- 
loguing the  different  ranks  of  the  ministry,  he  mentioned 
first  of  all  the  apostles,  and  forebore  to  hint  that  there 
was  any  intermediary  between  them  and  Christ.  The 
same  disregard  of  an  exceptional  position  of  Peter  was 
manifested  in  the  description  of  Christians  as  built  upon 
the  foundation  of  the  apostles  and  prophets,  Jesus  Christ 
himself  being  the  chief  corner  stone.  It  would  appear 
also  that  Paul  never  broached  the  notion  to  his  Corin- 
thian disciples  that  Peter  stood  above  the  other  apostles 
as  the  immediate  bearer  and  exponent  of  Christ's  author- 
ity, otherwise  one  section  of  them  could  hardly  have 
counted  it  appropriate  to  make  special  allegiance  to  Christ 
antithetic  to  allegiance  to  Peter,  and  another  section 


142  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

would  have  convicted  themselves  of  folly  in  choosing  the 
leadership  of  Paul  over  that  of  the  far  more  exalted 
apostle.  Evidently  the  Roman  theory  of  the  Petrine 
primacy  had  never  dawned  upon  these  Corinthians.  It 
never  emerged  above  the  New  Testament  horizon.  The 
revelator  gives  no  token  that  it  had  ever  come  within  the 
range  of  his  vision.  He  saw  apostolic  names  graven  on 
the  foundations  of  the  wall  of  the  heavenly  city.  He  has 
not  reported  that  one  of  these  names  was  placed  aloft 
and  distinguished  by  emblems  of  official  preeminence. 

Since  Peter  was  a  foundation  as  doing  the  work  of  a 
founder,  and  this  work  was  dependent  upon  his  character 
as  a  true  confessor,  literal  heirship  to  his  place  in  the 
foundation  lies  outside  the  range  of  rational  construction. 
In  respect  of  his  office  as  apostle  or  missionary  at  large, 
he  might  transmit  to  a  successor  some  of  his  functions; 
but  to  impute  to  him,  in  the  character  of  a  foundation, 
a  line  of  successors  would  be  very  much  like  giving  a 
line  of  successors  to  Adam  as  the  first  man,  or  to  Wash- 
ington as  the  father  of  his  country.  Having  no  consti- 
tutional primacy  he  could  not,  of  course,  transmit  any- 
thing of  the  sort  to  the  Roman  bishop  or  to  any  other 
selected  official.  As  regards  the  New  Testament,  it  is 
needless  to  say  that  it  is  as  silent  about  the  assumed 
transmission  as  the  tombs  of  ancient  Egypt.  So  far  is 
it  from  reporting  the  transmission  that  it  does  not  report 
even  a  single  one  of  its  necessary  conditions.  It  does  not 
certainly  inform  us  that  Peter  was  ever  in  Rome.  Only 
through  the  assumption  that  the  "Babylon"  from  which 
the  apostle  sends  a  salutation  in  his  first  epistle  was  a 
mystical  name  for  the  imperial  capital  is  the  least  ground 
obtained  in  the  apostolic  writings  for  predicating  a 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  143 

Roman  sojourn;  and  that  assumption  is  greatly  in  need 
of  a  more  thorough  justification  than  it  has  ever  received. 
Granting  that  Peter  was  in  Rome,  we  cannot  claim,  in 
the  light  of  New  Testament  data,  that  he  was  there  for 
any  considerable  period,  since,  on  the  contrary  supposi- 
tion, the  total  absence  of  any  reference  in  the  book  of 
Acts  and  the  Pauline  epistles  to  his  presence  and  labors 
there  would  be  an  enigma.  No  more  can  we  claim,  in 
view  of  the  same  data,  that  the  apostle  could  have  ful- 
filled the  office  of  Roman  bishop,  inasmuch  as  the  New 
Testament  by  speaking  rather  of  "bishops"  than  of  a 
bishop  in  connection  with  a  Christian  community,  and 
also  by  apparently  using  the  terms  "bishops"  and  "pres- 
byters" interchangeably,  affords  very  good  ground  for 
challenging  the  conclusion  that  the  office  of  bishop  in  the 
customary  sense  of  the  term  had  yet  been  evolved  in  the 
apostle's  day.  Thus  a  necessary  premise  of  the  papal 
theory  is  destitute  of  sanction,  not  to  say  peremptorily 
excluded  by  New  Testament  evidence.  We  have  not  se- 
cured Peter  to  serve  as  bishop  of  Rome;  and  even  if  we 
had,  what  would  be  the  result?  We  should  simply  have 
an  instance  in  which  an  apostle,  or  missionary  at  large, 
condescended  to  do  a  piece  of  local  administration,  and 
his  successor  in  the  local  station  in  the  natural  order  of 
things  would  not  succeed  to  his  general  office,  any  more 
than  the  pastor  of  a  local  church  would  return  from  his 
summer  vacation  a  bishop,  in  case  a  bishop  had  con- 
descended to  fulfill  the  pastoral  office  in  the  interim  for 
the  local  congregation.  The  truth  is,  the  representation 
that  Peter  acted  as  bishop  of  Rome,  carried  into  that 
office  a  universal  jurisdiction,  and  transmitted  this  to  a 
successor  in  the  local  office,  is  not  only  absolutely  void 


144  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

of  basis  in  New  Testament  history,  but  glaringly  in- 
congruous with  the  historical  situation.  It  tramples  all 
probability  in  the  dust  and  overrides  a  whole  line  of 
scriptural  implications.  The  representation  is  also  dis- 
countenanced by  the  tenor  of  the  postapostolic  tradition 
respecting  the  primitive  Roman  episcopate,  though  a  con- 
fusing element  ere  long  came  into  that  tradition  through 
a  tendency  to  judge  early  by  existing  conditions,  through 
an  ambition  for  high  sanctions  against  opponents  in  con- 
troversy, and  through  romancing  delineations  of  apos- 
tolic history  in  the  pseudo  Clementine  literature.  As 
reported  by  Irenaeus,  our  earliest  and  most  trustworthy 
witness  in  the  matter,  the  postapostolic  tradition  cannot 
fairly  be  credited  with  having  placed  Peter  in  the  list 
of  Roman  bishops  at  all.  It  seems  to  have  begun  the 
count  with  Linus.  "The  blessed  apostles,"  says  Irenaeus, 
in  his  most  detailed  reference  to  the  subject,  "having 
founded  and  built  up  the  church,  committed  into  the 
hands  of  Linus  the  office  of  the  episcopate.  Of  this 
Linus  Paul  makes  mention  in  the  Epistles  to  Timothy. 
To  him  succeeded  Anacletus ;  and  after  him,  in  the  third 
place  from  the  apostles,  Clement  was  allotted  the  bish- 
opric."1 Going  forward  with  his  list,  Irenaeus  names 
the  Roman  bishops  in  order  up  to  the  twelfth,  and  among 
these  Hyginus  is  ranked  as  the  eighth.  In  a  couple  of 
other  instances  Hyginus,  being  mentioned  by  himself, 
is  assigned  the  ninth  place  in  the  existing  text  of 
Irenseus.2  In  one  of  these  instances  he  is  named  the 
ninth  from  the  apostles,  and  in  connection  with  both  of 
them,  old  Latin  versions  afford  a  measure  of  authority 
for  substituting  eighth.  Since  in  the  itemized  statement 

»  Cont.  Haer.  III.  iii.  j.  a  Cont.  Haer.  I.  xxvii.  i,  III.  iv.  3. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  145 

Irenaeus  most  unequivocally  makes  Hyginus  the  eighth 
bishop,  there  is  some  ground  for  concluding  with  Har- 
nack  that  the  text  of  this  father  has  been  tampered  with 
in  the  two  instances  mentioned,  so  as  to  give  it  an  appear- 
ance of  agreement  with  the  later  and  greatly  expanded 
tradition  relative  to  Peter's  agency  in  the  founding  and 
early  government  of  the  Roman  church.  On  the  general 
theme  of  the  evidence  of  the  old  Roman  lists  Harnack 
draws  this  conclusion:  "It  is  certain  that  in  Rome  at 
the  end  of  the  second  century  Peter  was  not  reckoned  as 
bishop;  for  Irenasus  expressly  designates  Sixtus  as  the 
sixth  bishop  and  gives  prominence  to  Paul  as  the  founder 
of  the  Roman  church  not  less  than  to  Peter.  Also  still 
at  the  beginning  of  the  third  century  Peter  was  not 
reckoned  as  the  first  Roman  bishop;  for  the  Roman 
author  of  the  writing,  which  Eusebius  (Hist.  Eccl.,  v. 
28)  has  copied,  numbers  Victor  as  the  thirteenth  bishop, 
and  so  does  not  reckon  Peter  in  the  list."1 

The  explanation  of  the  double  fiction  of  Peter's  con- 
stitutional primacy  and  of  its  transmission  to  the  Roman 
bishop  is  nothing  remote  or  hidden.  The  major  part  of 
it  lies  in  the  imperial  greatness  of  Rome,  and  the  residue 
in  the  apostolic  associations  of  the  Roman  church.  But 
for  the  mighty  working  of  the  former  factor  an  entirely 
different  theory  of  the  location  of  the  episcopal  primacy 
might  have  resulted.  Suppose,  for  example,  that  before 
the  end  of  the  first  century  Ephesus  had  become  the  un- 
rivaled seat  of  imperial  greatness  and  glory,  the  famed 
center  of  the  world  power,  and  had  continued  to  hold 
the  proud  distinction  for  a  prolonged  age.  What  in  that 
event  would  have  prevented  the  bishop  of  Ephesus  from 

1  Die  Chronologic  des  altchristlichen  Litteratur,  I.  171,  173. 


146  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

arrogating  to  himself  a  full  equivalent  for  all  that  came 
to  be  claimed  by  the  bishop  of  Rome  ?  Certainly  no  rela- 
tive lack  of  a  New  Testament  basis  for  a  Johannine  as 
compared  with  a  Petrine  primacy  would  have  stood  in 
the  way  of  that  result.  What  can  create  a  higher  title 
than  love?  Who  then  among  the  apostles  could  claim 
preeminence  with  so  good  a  right  as  the  disciple  whom 
Jesus  loved?  Moreover,  was  it  not  intimated  that  pre- 
cisely this  apostle  should  abide  till  the  coming  of  his 
Lord?  and  how  could  this  intimation  gain  an  adequate 
fulfillment  except  through  a  line  of  Ephesian  bishops  in 
whom,  so  to  speak,  John  should  live  and  rule  to  the  end 
of  the  dispensation?  An  argument  of  this  kind  for  an 
Ephesian  primacy  is  every  whit  as  good  as  that  which 
can  be  made,  on  a  New  Testament  basis,  for  a  Roman 
primacy.  But  Ephesus  was  not  the  center  of  world  em- 
pire, and  her  bishop  too  plainly  lacked  the  means  of  mag- 
nifying himself  into  a  lord  of  Christendom  to  permit  in 
him  the  necessary  hope  and  courage  for  such  an  en- 
terprise. 

The  imperial  associations  and  secular  importance  of 
Rome  necessarily  secured  for  the  resident  bishop,  at  a 
comparatively  early  date,  a  special  degree  of  prominence, 
entirely  irrespective  of  his  constitutional  prerogatives. 
Nevertheless,  in  the  ante-Nicene  period,  he  nowhere  at- 
tained to  a  genuine  papal  standing,  or  position  of  govern- 
ing authority  over  the  Church  at  large.  As  for  the  type 
of  absolutism  asserted  by  the  Vatican  Council,  no  one 
dreamed  of  such  a  thing  in  that  age.  Among  all  the 
flattering  tributes  which  naturally  accrued  to  the  Roman 
bishop  as  the  head  of. the  church  in  the  great  capital  not 
one  contemplates  him  as  the  possessor  of  a  general  and 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  147 

independent  sovereignty.  A  good  part  of  them  have  so 
little  significance  for  church  polity  that  they  might  prop- 
erly pass  without  mention  had  not  the  anxious  apologist 
placed  them  on  exhibition.  Here  belongs  the  reference 
of  Ignatius  to  the  Roman  church  as  having  a  "presi- 
dency of  love."1  The  phrase  occurs  in  a  catalogue  of 
laudatory  epithets,  and  ample  justice  is  done  to  it  when 
it  is  treated  simply  as  a  compliment  to  the  spirit  of 
charity  and  brotherly  ministering  characteristic  of  the 
Christian  society  at  Rome.  It  is  the  society,  not  the 
bishop,  which  is  the  subject  of  the  commendation.  In 
fact,  Ignatius  ignores  the  existence  of  the  bishop,  and 
seems  besides  not  to  have  supposed  the  Roman  see  to  be 
•the  special  patrimony  of  Peter,  since  he  places  Paul  on 
a  parity  with  Peter  when  naming  those  who  had  formerly 
laid  commandments  on  the  Roman  Christians.  With 
scarcely  more  propriety  than  the  martyr  bishop  of  An- 
tioch  is  Tertullian  brought  onto  the  witness  stand.  It  is 
true  that  Tertullian  is  on  record  as  calling  the  Roman 
bishop  "Pontifex  Maximus,  the  bishop  of  bishops."2  But 
the  very  use  of  a  distinctively  heathen  title  was  a  token 
of  irony,  and  Tertullian  left  no  doubt  about  his 
ironical  intent  by  associating  the  high-sounding  phrase 
with  a  decree  of  the  Roman  prelate  which  he  declared 
could  not  be  posted  with  propriety  except  "on  the  very 
gates  of  the  sensual  appetites."3  So  far  from  paying 
here  a  tribute  of  respect,  Tertullian  was  employing  his 
rhetorical  gift  to  devise  a  condensed  formula  for  giving 
expression  to  defiance  and  scorn.  A  third  supposed  in- 
stance of  respect  to  Roman  supremacy,  if  not  quite  so 
completely  groundless  as  the  foregoing,  has  no  real  sig- 

1  Epist.  ad  Rom.,  L  *  De  Pudicitia.  i.  »  Ibid.,   i. 


148  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

nificance.  We  refer  to  the  character  of  the  reply  made 
by  Dionysius  of  Alexandria  to  the  Roman  bishop  of  the 
same  name,  who  on  occasion  of  adverse  reports  about  the 
teaching  of  the  former  wrote  an  epistle  in  exposition  of 
what  he  considered  to  be  the  true  faith.  The  reply  of 
the  Alexandrian  bishop  was  doubtless  in  an  irenic  vein. 
It  was  such  a  letter,  however,  as  any  prudent  and  peace- 
loving  man  who  wished  to  avert  a  threatened  disturbance 
might  have  written.  There  was  no  acknowledgment  in 
it  of  the  supremacy  of  the  Roman  see.  The  incident  may 
betoken  that  among  would-be  leaders  in  ecclesiastical  af- 
fairs, at  the  middle  of  the  third  century,  the  Roman 
bishop  felt  his  own  importance  to  a  very  considerable 
degree;  but  it  furnishes  no  evidence  whatever  in  the 
direction  of  a  papal  constitution  of  the  Church. 

Among  all  the  supposed  witnesses,  in  the  ante-Nicene 
period,  to  the  supremacy  of  the  Roman  bishop,  Irenaeus 
and  Cyprian  are  given  the  greatest  prominence.  This 
results  from  the  fact  that  each  of  them,  under  stress  of 
controversy,  used  a  phrase  or  two  which  can  be  made, 
when  taken  out  of  the  proper  connections,  to  imply  an 
exceptional  place  for  the  church  in  Rome.-  Both  of  them 
nevertheless  are  exceedingly  perilous  witnesses  for  the 
Roman  cause.  The  words  of  Irenaeus  which  are  as- 
sumed to  be  so  very  significant  are  preserved  only  in  a 
Latin  version.  This  runs  as  follows:  "Ad  hanc  enim 
ecclesiam  propter  potentiorem  principalitatem  necesse  est 
omnem  convenire  ecclesiam,  hoc  est,  eos  qui  sunt  undique 
fideles,  in  qua  semper  ab  his,  qui  sunt  undique,  conser- 
vata  est  ea  quae  est  ab  apostolis  traditio."1  In  determin- 
ing the  force  of  this  sentence  not  a  little  depends  upon  the 

'  Cont.  Haer.,  III.  iii.  a. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  149 

meaning  assigned  to  convenire  ad.  If  the  phrase  is  ren- 
dered "to  agree  with,"  then  some  sort  of  an  obligation  to 
agree  with  the  church  at  Rome  is  apparently  affirmed. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  the  phrase  is  supposed  to  signify 
"to  convene  at,"  or  "come  together  to,"  the  sentence 
would  import  that  on  account  of  the  practical  necessity 
which  exists  for  men  to  come  to  Rome  from  all  sections, 
the  Roman  church  has  the  benefit  of  testimony  from  all 
sides,  and  is  especially  suited  to  serve  as  a  depository  of 
valid  tradition.  The  latter  interpretation  accords  with 
the  meaning  borne  by  convenire  ad  in  the  Vulgate,  and 
some  countenance  has  recently  been  given  to  it  by  Roman 
Catholic  scholars  as  well  as  by  Protestant  students  of 
ecclesiastical  history.1  But  suppose  the  alternative 
interpretation  is  adopted,  and  Irenaeus  is  understood 
to  say  that,  on  account  of  the  superior  primitiveness  or 
authority  of  the  Roman  church,  it  is  necessary  to  agree 
with  this  church,  has  he  given  us  even  then  a  lesson 
on  a  primacy  of  governing  authority  vested  in  the 
Roman  bishop?  Nothing  of  the  sort.  He  has  not 
mentioned  the  bishop;  he  has  mentioned  only  the  Chris- 
tian church  at  Rome.  And  about  this  church  he  has 
said  nothing  in  respect  of  governing  authority,  but 
has  merely  emphasized  a  certain  superiority  belonging  to 
it  as  a  witness  to  the  genuine  apostolic  teaching.  The 
whole  context  shows  that  the  only  authority  of  which 
he  was  thinking  was  that  which  sprang  from  superior 
opportunities  to  know  the  truth,  and  the  only  obligation 
which  he  affirmed  was  the  obligation  to  consult  a  spe- 
cially trustworthy  source  of  information.  And  even  as  a 

1  Consult   Bright,   The   Roman  See  in  the   Early  Church;  Puller,   The 
Primitive  Saints  and  the  See  of  Rome. 


ISO  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

source  of  information  the  Roman  church  was  not  ac- 
corded by  him  a  thoroughly  exceptional  position.  The 
special  appeal  to  the  Roman  church  was  made  as  a 
matter  of  convenience.  In  his  great  task  of  refuting  the 
Gnostics,  Irenaeus  wished  to  set  forth  a  corrective  to  their 
arbitrary  interpretations.  He  pointed,  therefore,  to  the 
fact  that  there  were  numerous  churches  in  which  the 
apostles  had  labored,  and  in  which  the  truths  which  they 
had  preached  had  been  handed  down  by  a  continuous 
line  of  successors.  Since  it  would  be  a  long-drawn 
process  to  mention  all  these  churches  and  to  prove  a 
continuous  succession  in  each  of  them,  he  said  that  he 
would  select  one  which  had  enjoyed  special  advantages 
for  appropriating  and  perpetuating  Christian  doctrine — 
"the  very  great,  the  very  ancient,  and  universally  known 
church  founded  and  organized  at  Rome  by  the  two  most 
glorious  apostles,  Peter  and  Paul."  Thus  in  perfectly 
unambiguous  terms  he  puts  the  Roman  church  in  a  class 
with  other  churches  which  had  enjoyed  the  personal 
supervision  of  the  apostles.  Moreover,  the  significance 
of  the  selection  of  Rome  is  appreciably  reduced  when 
account  is  taken  of  the  location  of  Irenaeus,  since  he 
wrote  in  the  West,  and  the  Roman  was  the  only  apostolic 
church  in  that  section  of  the  empire.  His  standpoint  may 
properly  be  regarded  as  identical  with  that  represented 
by  Tertullian  when  the  latter  said  that  outside  of  the 
Scriptures  appeal  ought  to  be  made  to  the  churches  of 
apostolic  origin  and  association;  Christians  in  the  East 
appealing  to  Smyrna,  Corinth,  Philippi,  and  Ephesus, 
while  Christians  in  Italy  could  most  conveniently  resort 
to  Rome.1  And  the  inference  which  thus  is  dictated  by 

1  De  Prescript.  Haeret.,  xxxii,  xxxvi. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  151 

the  tenor  of  his  most  complimentary  reference  to  the 
Roman  church  finds  powerful  confirmation  in  his  con- 
duct. In  the  Easter  controversy  he  made  it  evident  that 
he  knew  nothing  about  a  supremacy  of  the  Roman  bishop 
over  the  Church  at  large  by  going  straight  in  the  face 
of  the  policy  of  Victor  and  industriously  opposing  his 
measures.  "Not  only  to  Victor,"  says  Eusebius,  "but 
likewise  to  most  of  the  other  rulers  of  the  churches,  he 
sent  letters  of  exhortation  on  the  agitated  question."1 

The  maximum  tribute  of  Cyprian  to  the  Roman  see  is 
contained  in  the  expression,  Petri  cathedra  atque  ecclesia 
principalis  unde  unitas  sacerdotalis  exorta  est — "the  chair 
of  Peter  and  the  principal  church,  whence  sacerdotal 
unity  has  arisen."2  Two  things  need  to  be  noticed  re- 
specting these  words.  They  occur  in  the  midst  of  a  fiery 
denunciation  of  certain  excommunicated  persons,  who 
had  given  Cyprian  an  infinitude  of  trouble,  and  whose 
attempt  to  gain  support  in  Rome  he  wished  to  picture  as 
being  in  itself  a  kind  of  assault  on  the  dignity  of  the 
Roman  episcopate  as  represented  by  the  Cornelius  to 
whom  he  was  writing.  The  connection  dictated  that  he 
should  say  his  very  best  word  for  the  Roman  church  and 
episcopal  chair.  Again,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  Cyprian 
in  employing  the  above  language  spoke  as  a  man  of  the 
West,  with  his  outlook  substantially  limited  by  a  western 
horizon.  As  the  great  missionary  center  of  the  West  the 
Roman  church  could  be  described  with  measurable  pro- 
priety as  the  mother  church  of  that  region,  the  point 
from  which  the  ecclesiastical  organism  had  been  extended 
in  all  directions.  But  the  description,  if  applied  to  the 
entire  Christian  area,  would  be  simply  false;  and  it  is 

1  Hist.  Eccl.,  v.  34.  *  Epist.  Hv,  Ad  Cornelium,  §  14. 


152  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

scarcely  to  be  presumed  that  Cyprian  had  any  sober  in- 
tention to  sanction  such  a  trespass  against  historic  truth. 
In  throwing  out  a  complimentary  phrase  he  did  not  stop 
to  distinguish  closely  between  what  was  pertinent  to  the 
apostle  Peter  and  what  was  pertinent  to  the  Roman 
church.  His  view  respecting  the  providential  employ- 
ment of  Peter  to  symbolize  ecclesiastical  unity  he  has 
taken  pains  to  set  before  us  in  another  connection. 
Stripped  of  the  forged  clauses,  which  were  interpolated 
near  the  end  of  the  sixth  century,  his  statement  runs  as 
follows:  "Although  to  all  the  apostles,  after  his  resur- 
rection, he  gives  an  equal  power,  and  says,  'As  the  Father 
hath  sent  me,  even  so  send  I  you:  Receive  ye  the  Holy 
Ghost :  whosesoever  sins  ye  remit  they  are  remitted  unto 
him;  and  whosesoever  sins  ye  retain,  they  shall  be  re- 
tained'; yet  that  he  might  set  forth  unity,  he  arranged 
by  his  authority  the  origin  of  that  unity,  as  beginning 
from  one.  Assuredly  the  rest  of  the  apostles  were  also 
the  same  as  was  Peter,  endowed  with  a  like  partnership 
both  of  honor  and  power;  but  the  beginning  proceeds 
from  unity,  which  one  Church,  also,  the  Holy  Spirit  in 
the  Song  of  Songs  designated  in  the  person  of  our  Lord, 
and  says,  'My  dove,  my  spotless  one,  is  but  one.'  "*  The 
passage  is  doubtless  a  specimen  of  the  fanciful  exegesis 
often  found  among  the  fathers,  but  its  meaning  is  quite 
obvious.  Twice  over  the  assertion  occurs  that  the  other 
apostles  were  endowed  with  the  same  power  or  authority 
as  was  Peter.  His  distinction  consisted  simply  in  the 
fact  that  his  share  of  authority — just  equal  to  that  of 
the  others — received  a  prior  mention,  in  order  that  he 
might  serve  to  symbolize  the  appropriate  unity  of  the 

»  De  Unitate  Ecclesiz,  §  4. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  153 

Church.  Having  no  exceptional  supremacy,  he  could 
not,  of  course,  transmit  any.  And  it  is  matter  of  com- 
plete demonstration  that  in  the  thought  of  Cyprian  he  was 
not  understood  to  have  passed  over  to  the  Roman  bishop 
any  extraordinary  prerogatives.  The  very  titles  by  which 
the  Carthaginian  prelate  names  the  Roman  are  not  a 
little  significant.  He  calls  him,  not  sanctissimus  dominus 
or  anything  of  the  kind,  but  just  "brother"  or  "col- 
league." In  his  formal  theory,  too,  he  makes  no  room 
for  a  papal  dignitary  within  the  episcopal  body.  He 
represents  the  bishops  as  constituting  one  great  fraternity, 
a  unity  accordant  with  the  oneness  of  the  Church,  each 
member  of  which  inheres  in  the  whole  body  and  is  re- 
sponsible thereto.  "This  unity,"  he  says,  "we  ought 
firmly  to  hold  and  assert,  especially  those  of  us  that  are 
bishops  who  preside  in  the  Church,  that  we  may  also 
prove  the  episcopate  itself  to  be  one  and  undivided.  The 
episcopate  is  one,  each  part  of  which  is  held  by  each  one 
for  the  whole."1  The  stress  is  here  upon  the  relation 
of  each  bishop  to  the  entire  episcopal  body,  not  upon 
the  relation  of  all  the  rest  to  some  one  exalted  to  a  posi- 
tion of  lordship.  The  logical  implication  of  the  repre- 
sentation is  that  the  supreme  authority  is  lodged  in  the 
whole  body  and  cannot  be  assumed  by  one  member  with- 
out gross  usurpation.  This  implication  Cyprian  took 
pains  to  express  in  unambiguous  terms  in  the  controversy 
with  the  Roman  bishop  Stephen  on  the  subject  of  the 
rebaptism  of  heretics.  Addressing  an  assembly  of  North 
African  bishops,  he  said:  "It  remains  that  upon  this 
matter  each  of  us  should  bring  forward  what  we  think, 
judging  no  man,  nor  rejecting  anyone  from  the  right  of 

»  De  Unitate  Ecclesiae,  §  5. 


154  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

communion,  if  he  should  think  differently  from  us.  For 
neither  does  any  of  us  set  himself  up  as  a  bishop  of 
bishops,  nor  by  tyrannical  terror  does  any  compel  his 
colleague  to  the  necessity  of  obedience ;  since  every  bishop, 
according  to  the  allowance  of  his  liberty  and  power,  has 
his  own  proper  right  of  judgment,  and  can  no  more  be 
judged  by  another  than  he  himself  can  judge  another."1 
Since  this  strong  language,  as  Hefele  admits  to  be 
probable,2  was  directed  against  the  obtrusive  policy  of 
Stephen,  it  amounts  to  a  clear-cut  and  comprehensive 
denial  of  any  constitutional  supremacy  of  the  Roman 
bishop  over  the  Church  at  large.  And  Cyprian's  conduct 
throughout  was  in  line  with  the  formal  denial.  On  the 
question  of  rebaptism  he  refused  to  make  the  least  con- 
cession to  the  demands  of  Stephen.  In  connection  with 
another  matter,  also,  he  denied  any  superior  jurisdiction 
in  the  Roman  bishop,  giving  counsel  to  the  Spanish 
churches  not  to  reverse  the  action  by  which  they  had 
excluded  the  bishops  Martialis  and  Basilides,  who  had 
betrayed  the  authorities  at  Rome  into  espousing  their 
cause.  "Neither  can  it  rescind,"  he  wrote,  "an  ordination 
rightly  perfected,  that  Basilides,  after  the  detection  of  his 
crimes,  and  the  baring  of  his  conscience  even  by  his  own 
confession,  went  to  Rome  and  deceived  Stephen  our 
colleague,  placed  at  a  distance,  and  ignorant  of  what 
had  been  done,  and  of  the  truth,  to  canvass  that  he 
might  be  replaced  unjustly  in  the  episcopate  from  which 
he  had  been  righteously  deposed."3  In  short,  it  is  the 
height  of  absurdity,  in  the  light  of  his  explicit  declara- 
tions, to  suppose  that  Cyprian  accorded  to  the  Roman 


1  The  Seventh  Council  of  Carthage  under  Cyprian,  A.D.  256. 

•  Conciliengeschichte,  §  6.  '  Epist.  Ixvii,  8  5- 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  155 

bishop  anything  like  a  papal  standing  in  the  later  sense. 
Some  of  the  contemporaries  of  Cypi  lan  also  made  a  very 
unmistakable  manifestation  of  their  anti-papal  standpoint. 
This  was  notably  the  case  with  Firmilian,  bishop  of 
Caesarea  in  Cappadocia.  In  a  letter  to  Cyprian  he 
charged  Stephen  with  practical  defection  from  the  plain 
instructions  of  Peter  and  Paul,  with  a  captious  and  quar- 
relsome bearing  toward  the  bishops  in  various  parts  of 
Christendom,  with  breaking  the  bond  of  peace,  making 
himself  a  stranger  in  all  respects  to  his  brethren,  and 
rebelling  against  the  sacrament  and  the  faith  with  the 
madness  of  contumacious  discord.1  This  is  not  the  pic- 
ture of  an  infallible  vicegerent.  It  is  rather  the  picture 
of  a  headstrong  and  meddlesome  colleague. 

Another  Eastern  contemporary  of  Cyprian,  namely, 
Origen  of  Alexandria,  might  be  asked  to  witness  on  the 
present  theme.  His  statements,  however,  are  rather  in- 
determinate. On  the  one  hand,  he  spoke  in  a  high,  not 
to  say  fanciful,  strain  respecting  Peter's  place  in  the 
spiritual  kingdom2 ;  on  the  other  hand,  he  represented  the 
apostles  generally  as  being  equally  with  Peter  intrusted 
with  the  keys,  and  as  fulfilling  in  relation  to  the  founda- 
tion of  the  Church  the  same  office  which  was  appointed 
to  him.  Indeed,  he  judged  that  all  true  confessors  are 
entitled  to  the  honorary  name  which  was  given  to  the 
illustrious  apostolic  confessor."3 

The  rating  of  the  Roman  bishop  by  the  Church  at  large 
is  one  thing;  attempts  on  the  part  of  the  Roman  bishops 
to  magnify  their  importance  and  to  extend  their  jurisdic- 
tion are  quite  another  thing.  It  lay  in  the  nature  of  the 

1  Epist.  Ixxiv  in  works  of  Cyprian. 

4  Comm.  in  Matt.,  xiii.  31;  Comm.  in  Epist.  ad  Rom.,  lib.  v,  n.  10- 

1  Comm.  in  Matt.,  xii.  10,  n,  14. 


156  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

case  that  in  connection  with  the  progressive  evolution  of 
the  episcopate  something  in  the  way  of  such  attempts 
should  occur.  Their  forthcoming,  as  previously  re- 
marked, is  in  no  sense  a  testimony  to  the  primitive  con- 
stitution of  the  Church.  It  would  have  been  necessary 
to  suppress  the  operation  of  ordinary  mundane  causes  in 
order  to  prevent  their  appearance.  The  stimulus  of  the 
imperial  associations  of  their  charge  naturally  gave  a 
Caesarian  tinge  to  the  consciousness  of  the  Roman 
bishops.  As  heads  over  the  church  in  the  great  capital, 
they  could  easily  be  tempted  to  think  that  their  advices 
to  their  brethren  ought  to  be  specially  potent,  and  that  a 
certain  forwardness  in  giving  advices,  as  corresponding 
with  the  opportunities  providentially  attached  to  their 
high  position,  would  be  rather  obligatory  than  blame- 
worthy. For  the  ante-Nicene  period,  however,  there  is 
only  moderate  occasion  to  contrast  what  was  claimed  by 
the  Roman  bishops  with  what  was  conceded  to  them. 
Some  instances  there  were  of  self-inflation,  some  cases  of 
rather  intemperate  endeavors  to  push  forward  preferred 
policies  or  points  of  view;  but  the  prelate  who  applied 
to  himself  the  full  papal  measure,  or  dared  to  assert  a 
constitutional  supremacy  over  the  whole  Church,  is  no- 
where disclosed.  He  is  not  disclosed  in  Clement;  for, 
while  this  representative  of  the  Roman  see  sent,  in  the 
name  of  the  Roman  Christians,  a  letter  of  advice  to  the 
Corinthian  church,  the  tone  of  the  communication  was 
rather  that  of  the  preacher,  convinced  of  the  truth  of  his 
message  and  of  the  consequent  obligation  of  those  ad- 
dressed to  give  it  good  heed,  than  that  of  the  ecclesiastical 
magnate.  Even  in  Victor  the  proper  figure  of  a  pope 
is  not  discoverable.  He  undertook,  indeed,  to  excom- 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  157 

municate  the  churches  of  proconsular  Asia  and  its  neigh- 
borhood, because  of  their  divergent  position  on  the  time 
of  the  Eastern  festival.1  But  this  harsh  sentence,  in  the 
absence  of  the  concurrence  of  other  bishops,  meant  only 
the  withdrawal  of  the  fellowship  of  the  local  church  of 
Rome.  As  the  concurrence  was  not  rendered,  Victor 
seems  to  have  been  stranded  in  his  high-handed  proce- 
dure, and  to  have  deemed  it  prudent  to  beat  a  retreat. 
So  little,  in  fact,  is  he  exhibited  by  his  total  performance 
as  an  ecclesiastical  lord,  that  he  would  distinctly  have 
improved  the  record  on  the  side  of  papal  claims  had  he 
exchanged  places  with  the  bishop  of  Lyons.  "Suppose," 
remarks  Salmon,  "it  had  been  Irenseus  who  had  rashly 
broken  communion  with  the  Asiatic  churches;  suppose 
that  Victor  had  then  written  a  letter  to  Irenaeus,  sharply 
rebuking  him,  and  had  also  written  to  the  other  bishops, 
warning  them  not  to  separate  from  those  who  had  been 
unwarrantably  excommunicated ;  and  suppose  that  in  con- 
sequence of  this  action  of  Victor's  the  threatened  schism 
had  been  averted,  would  not  that  have  been  paraded  as 
a  decisive  proof  of  papal  supremacy?  and  certainly  it 
would  be  one  far  stronger  than  any  which,  as  things  are, 
early  church  history  can  furnish."2  With  the  case  of 
Victor  we  naturally  associate  that  of  Stephen.  Nothing 
needs  to  be  added  to  what  was  said  above  to  indicate  the 
perfect  freedom  with  which  the  latter,  no  less  than  the 
former,  was  resisted  by  the  contemporary  bishops.  The 
evidence  goes  to  show  that  he  was  of  a  somewhat  aggres- 
sive and  assertatory  temper;  but  that  he  ever  formulated 
a  distinctive  papal  claim  is  not  on  record.  A  prelate  in 
any  one  of  the  great  metropolitan  seats  might  have  mani- 

1  Eusebius,  Hist.  Eccl.,  v.  24.       »  The  Infallibility  of  the  Church,  p.  386. 


158  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

fested  essentially  the  same  ambitious  use  of  official  power 
and  influence.  Indeed,  a  fairly  good  parallel  was  fur- 
nished later  by  such  aggressive  exponents  of  episcopal 
rule  in  Alexandria  as  Cyril  and  Dioscurus.  So  along  the 
whole  line  from  Linus  to  Sylvester  the  man  who  played 
the  full  role  of  a  pope,  or  even  undertook  to  do  so,  is 
not  discernible.  The  extent  to  which  the  Roman  bishops 
projected  themselves  into  the  affairs  of  the  Church  was 
even  smaller  than  might  have  been  expected.  There  is 
ground  for  concluding  that  many  of  them  must  have 
been  men  of  mediocre  abilities,  and  that  scarcely  one  in 
the  list  was  comparable  with  Cyprian  in  respect  of  execu- 
tive force. 

A  reference  may  perhaps  be  expected  to  an  imperial 
judgment  in  favor  of  the  Roman  see,  namely,  that  which 
was  rendered  by  Aurelian  for  the  purpose  of  determining 
who  should  hold  the  church  edifice  in  Antioch,  whether 
the  deposed  Paul  of  Samosata  or  the  one  installed  in  his 
place.  The  judgment  was  to  the  effect  that  those  should 
hold  the  edifice  with  whom  the  Christian  bishops  in  Italy 
and  in  the  city  of  the  Romans  should  communicate.1 
This  decision  shows,  as  might  be  expected,  the  respect  of 
the  emperor  for  the  primacy  of  Italy.  But  it  is  very 
equivocal  evidence  for  any  special  preeminence  of  the 
Roman  bishop.  On  the  basis  of  a  monarchical  constitu- 
tion of  the  Church,  known  and  acknowledged  as  such,  it 
would  be  a  strange  procedure  to  coordinate  the  bishops 
of  all  Italy  with  their  Roman  brother,  and  besides  to 
name  him  after  them.2 

The  absence  of  any  credible  basis  for  the  dogma  of 


1  Eusebius,  Hist.  Eccl.,  vii.  30. 

1  Compare  Bright,  The  Roman  See  in  the  Early  Church,  pp.  56,  57. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  159 

papal  supremacy  either  in  Scripture  or  in  the  records  of 
the  ante-Nicene  Church  involves  the  conclusion  that  it 
could  be  installed  only  by  a  veritable  tour  de  force.  Had 
it  been  any  part  of  the  revelation  committed  to  the  apos- 
tles it  could  not,  as  being  of  immense  practical  signifi- 
cance, have  been  kept  out  of  the  knowledge  and  recogni- 
tion of  Christendom  for  three  centuries.  But  failing  to 
claim  a  satisfactory  basis  in  the  apostolic  revelation,  writ- 
ten or  oral,  it  could  never  legitimately  become  any  part 
of  the  essential  Christian  system ;  for  it  is  an  approved 
maxim  of  Roman  Catholic  theology  that  nothing  which 
is  not  based  in  that  primary  revelation  can  attain  the 

rank  of  dogma. 

s 

In  reviewing  that  portion  of  the  patristic  era  which 
followed  the  Council  of  Nicaea  it  is  necessary,  in  the 
interest  of  a  fair  estimate  of  evidence,  to  respect  certain 
premises  which  are  likely  to  be  slighted  by  the  apologist, 
though  he  would  hesitate  formally  to  challenge  their  cor- 
rectness.    In  the  first  place,  the  truth  properly  claims\ 
recognition  that  the  sphere  of  constitutional  right  cannot  j 
safely  be  measured  by  the  sphere  of  actual  influence.  J 
There  was  obviously  a  tendency  on  the  side  of  the  latter  \ 
to  overreach  the  former.    Suppose,  for  instance,  that  the/ 
Roman  bishop,  at  the  date  of  the  Nicene  Council,  had 
attained  at  least  the  initial  standing  of  a  patriarch,  in 
virtue  of  which  a  certain  primacy  of  jurisdiction,  not 
very  definitely  determined,  was  accorded  to  him  over  a 
considerable  section  of  the  West.    That  degree  of  distinc- 
tion would  almost  inevitably  work  for  the  further  exten- 
sion of  his  practical  agency.     The  constitution  of  the 
Church  might  absolutely  refuse  to  recognize  any  higher 


160  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

character  in  him  than  that  of  patriarch;  but  as  patriarch 
of  imperial  Rome  he  would  have  a  certain  advantage 
over  his  colleagues,  a  certain  primacy  of  honor.  People 
looking  around  for  a  powerful  patron  would  experience 
a  motive  to  appeal  to  him  where  there  seemed  to  be  a  fair 
possibility  of  gaining  his  cooperation.  So  the  invitation 
and  the  opportunity  would  be  given  to  extend  his  influ- 
ence beyond  the  limits  of  his  jurisdiction  proper.  An 
apt  illustration  of  what  would  naturally  take  place  under 
such  conditions  is  afforded  by  the  history  of  the  Anglican 
Church.  "The  jurisdiction  of  the  archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury is  confined  to  the  province  of  Canterbury;  but 
just  because  he  is,  by  the  consent  of  all,  acknowledged 
to  be  the  first  bishop  on  the  roll  of  the  Anglican  episco- 
pate, therefore  his  influence  extends  throughout  the  whole 
Anglican  communion.  He  naturally  presides  in  the  Lam- 
beth Conference ;  he  has  the  chief  share  in  deciding  what 
subjects  shall  be  discussed  there ;  his  advice  is  continually 
asked  in  regard  to  matters  occurring  in  the  colonial 
churches ;  in  a  very  true  sense  the  care  of  all  the  churches 
is  upon  him ;  and  all  this  comes  to  him  simply  because  he 
is  the  first.  No  canon  gives  him  this  influence ;  nor  does 
that  influence  arise  out  of  his  pretending  to  any  primacy 
by  divine  right."1  As  in  this  Anglican  instance  influence 
outran  jurisdiction  proper,  so  is  it  enormously  probable 
that  in  the  Roman  instance  influence  passed  beyond  the 
constitutional  limits  of  jurisdiction.  A  discovery,  there- 
fore, of  the  hand  of  the  Roman  bishop  in  affairs  beyond 
the  borders  of  his  patriarchate,  in  the  post-Nicene 
age,  would  be  no  adequate  proof  that  the  constitution 
of  the  Church  was  papal  rather  than  patriarchal  at  the 

1  Puller,  The  Primitive  Saints  and  the  See  of  Rome,  p.  9. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  161 

opening  of  that  age,  or  even  for  a  long  interval  after- 
ward. 

A  second  thoroughly  warranted  premise  or  maximN 
may  be  given  expression  in  the  proposition  that  highly 
rhetorical  tributes  rendered  by  individuals,  and  especially 
by  individuals  interested  to  secure  the  favor  of  a  powerful 
patron,  have  a  very  limited  right  to  be  taken  as  repre- 
senting the  standpoint  or  judicial  verdict  of  an  age.  /IT 
is  questionable,  indeed,  whether  such  tributes  can  be 
taken  as  fairly  representing  the  individuals  uttering  them. 
The  case  of  Jerome  is  illustrative.  In  one  connection 
he  wrote  to  the  Roman  bishop  in  this  strain:  "I  speak 
with  the  successor  of  the  fisherman  and  the  disciple  of 
the  cross.  Giving  precedence  to  no  one  except  Christ,  I 
am  joined  in  communion  with  thy  blessed  eminence,  that 
is,  the  chair  of  Peter.  I  know  that  upon  that  rock  the 
Church  has  been  built."1  Undoubtedly  there  is  a  savor 
of  incense  in  these  words;  and  there  was  occasion  for 
it,  for  Jerome  at  the  time  of  writing  was  under  stress  as 
respects  his  reputation  for  orthodoxy.2  When  less  in 
need  of  a  favorable  judgment  of  the  Roman  magnate, 
Jerome  could  pen  words  having  a  very  different  sound,  as 
appears  in  the  following:  "If  authority  is  sought,  the 
world  is  greater  than  a  city.  Wherever  a  bishop  may 
have  been  stationed,  whether  at  Rome,  Eugubium,  Con- 
stantinople, Regium,  Alexandria,  or  Tanis,  he  is  of  the 
same  merit,  and  the  same  priesthood.  Neither  the  power 
of  riches  nor  the  lowliness  of  poverty  makes  a  bishop 
more  or  less  exalted.  But  all  are  successors  of  the  apos- 
tles."3 On  occasion  he  could  so  absolutely  ignore  the 

1  Epist.  xv,  ad  Damasum. 

»  Dollinger  und  Friedrich,  Das  Papstthum.  Neubearbeitung  von  Janus, 
1892,  p.  n;  »  Epist.  cxlvi,  ad  Evangelum. 


i<52  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

demands  of  the  Roman  theory  of  episcopal  primacy  as  to 
favor  the  supposition  that  episcopacy  as  a  whole  had  no 
place  in  the  original  ecclesiastical  constitution,  the 
churches  primarily  having  been  governed  by  the  common 
counsel  of  presbyters.1  Much  the  same  order  of  comment 
applies  to  the  complimentary  reference  of  Optatus  of 
Mileve  to  the  position  of  the  Roman  bishop.  "You  can- 
not affect  ignorance,"  he  says  to  an  opponent,  "of  the 
fact  that  the  episcopal  chair  was  first  established  by 
Peter  in  the  city  of  Rome,  in  which  Peter  sat,  the  head 
of  all  the  apostles,  in  which  one  chair  unity  should  be 
maintained  by  all ;  that  the  other  apostles  should  not  each 
set  up  a  chair  for  himself,  but  that  he  should  be  at  once  a 
schismatic  and  a  sinner  who  should  erect  any  other 
against  that  one  chair."2  Herein  the  North  African 
father  went  apparently  a  long  stride  beyond  Cyprian's 
representation  of  Peter  as  simply  a  means  of  symbolizing 
unity;  indeed,  he  penned  a  sentence  which  can  hardly 
be  matched  from  the  literature  of  the  fourth  century  in 
the  extent  of  its  tribute  to  Roman  claims.  But  can  his 
emphatic  words  be  taken  as  a  trustworthy  expression  of 
his  entire  attitude  toward  Rome?  There  are  good 
reasons  for  believing  that  it  would  be  rash  so  to  take 
them.  Optatus  was  in  the  mood  of  the  anxious  and 
hard-pressed  disputant.  He  was  arguing  against  the 
great  aggressive  faction  of  Donatists,  and  it  suited  the 
controversial  demand  to  magnify  the  importance  of  com- 
munion with  that  ancient  apostolic  church  which  had 
remained  from  the  first  generation  of  believers  the  center 
of  Western  Christendom.  He  makes  use  of  a  very  intel- 
ligible object  lesson  to  convince  his  opponents  of  their 

1  Comm.  in  Epist.  ad  Titum,  i.  5.  *  DC  Schis.  Donat.,  ii.  a. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  163 

reprehensible  schism.  But  suppose  that  Optatus  had 
been  confronted  by  an  emergency  of  an  opposite  char- 
acter, such  as  an  attempt  by  the  Roman  bishop  to  inter- 
fere with  the  local  rights  and  privileges  customarily 
enjoyed  in  North  Africa.  Would  he  have  thought  it 
necessary  or  appropriate,  in  that  event,  to  emphasize  the 
need  of  harmonious  relations  with  Rome  ?  It  is  the  next 
thing  to  an  absolute  certainty  that  he  would  have  done 
nothing  of  the  sort.  He  was  in  all  probability  of  like 
passions  with  other  North  Africans,  and  we  know  with 
what  decision,  within  a  few  decades  of  the  time  when 
Optatus  wrote  the  cited  treatise,  they  repelled  the  inter- 
meddling of  the  Roman  bishops  in  their  affairs.  In 
synods  convened  at  Carthage  in  407  and  418  they  laid 
an  injunction  upon  the  clergy,  at  least  upon  all  below  the 
rank  of  bishop,  to  be  content  with  African  tribunals,  and 
even  denounced  permanent  exclusion  from  the  African 
Church  against  those  who  should  appeal  to  authorities 
beyond  the  sea.  We  conclude,  then,  that  the  Romanizing 
sentence  which  Optatus  flung  at  the  Donatists  did  not 
more  than  half  express  his  own  mind.  In  general, 
phrases  of  this  order,  on  record  for  the  post-Nicene  age, 
are  subject  to  discount  on  the  score  of  their  occasion. 
They  sprang  out  of  the  tense  conditions  of  one  of  the 
most  desperately  controversial  epochs  in  all  history.  The 
major  part  of  their  explanation  lies  here,  though  some 
account  may  be  made  of  a  bent  to  rhetorical  effervescence 
characteristic  of  the  time.  Why  should  not  the  fathers 
speak  in  high-sounding  terms  of  Peter  and  his  reputed 
successors?  They  were  not  sparing  of  grandiloquent 
words  in  describing  other  persons  of  rank  and  distinc- 
tion. Gregory  Nazianzen  lauded  Cyprian  as  a  kind  of 


164  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

universal  pastor,  who  "presided  not  only  over  the  church 
of  Carthage  and  over  Africa,  but  also  over  all  the  coun- 
tries of  the  West,  and  well-nigh  over  all  the  region  of 
the  East,  of  the  South,  and  of  the  North."1  Hesychius, 
a  presbyter  of  Jerusalem,  called  James  "the  commander- 
in-chief  of  the  new  Jerusalem,  the  ruler  of  priests,  the 
prince  of  apostles."2  Epiphanius  described  James  as  the 
one  "to  whom  the  Lord  first  intrusted  his  throne  upon 
earth,"3  and  Chrysostom  named  John  "a  pillar  of  the 
churches  throughout  the  world"  and  Paul  an  "apostle 
of  the  world."4  Even  the  staid  Leo  the  Great  could  go 
so  far  in  the  language  of  compliment  as  to  ascribe  to  the 
contemporary  emperor  a  faith  proof  against  all  error.5 
tanifestly,  where  so  free  a  range  was  given  to  rhetorical 
license,  it  is  needful  to  scan  very  closely  the  tributes 

j  which  specially  circumstanced  individuals  may  have  paid 
to  the  Roman  bishop,  before  taking  them  at  their  face 
value. 

*  /  Extending  the  statement  just  made,  we  may  lay  down, 
as  a  third  warrantable  premise,  that  the  word  or  act  of 
an  interested  party  or  group  is  not  hastily  to  be  accepted 
as  a  true  index  of  the  antecedent  or  existing  constitution 
of  the  Church.  It  is  not  established,  for  example,  that 
an  assembly  thoroughly  representative  of  the  whole 
Church  would  have  voted  in  favor  of  such  canons  as 
were  enacted  by  the  Council  of  Sardica  in  343.  By 
these  canons  it  was  provided  that  a  deposed  bishop,  who 
considered  himself  to  have  been  dealt  with  unjustly, 
should  have  the  right  to  appeal  to  the  Roman  bishop; 
that  the  latter,  in  case  he  should  deem  the  appeal  well- 

1  Orat.,  xxiv.  12.      *  Apud  Photium,  Bibliotheca,  cclxxv.       '  User.,  Ixxii. 
4  Cited  by  Barrow,  Treatise  on  the  Pope's  Supremacy,  1818,  p.  112. 
6  Epist.  clxii.  3.     Nee  fidei  vestrae  ullus  possit  error  illudere. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  165 

founded,  should  be  authorized  to  make  up  a  new  tribunal 
from  the  bishops  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  accused, 
and,  if  thought  best,  to  send  legates  who  should  have 
a  place  in  said  tribunal ;  that  the  office  of  the  bishop  thus 
appealing  should  not  be  filled  until  Rome  had  either  con- 
firmed his  sentence  or  provided  for  a  new  trial.  This 
legislation,  dictated  by  a  sense  of  the  deplorable  lot  to 
which  unoffending  bishops  were  often  reduced  in  the 
fierce  contentions  of  the  time,  makes  the  most  conspicu- 
ous instance  of  deference  to  the  Roman  bishop  afforded 
by  any  fourth  century  council.  The  historians  Socrates1 
and  Sozomen,2  it  is  true,  represent  Julius  of  Rome  as 
appealing  to  a  canon  which  provided  that  nothing  should 
be  done  in  the  Church  without  the  consent  of  the  Roman 
bishop.  But  the  appeal  seems  to  have  been  destitute  of 
a  proper  warrant.  No  competent  authority,  not  to  say 
any  synodal  authority  whatever  in  the  ancient  Church, 
ever  passed  such  a  canon.  The  legislation  at  Sardica 
evidently  merits  no  such  broad  description.  Moreover, 
the  council  which  passed  the  Sardican  canons  was  essen- 
tially an  assembly  of  Western  bishops.  As  respects  the 
import  of  their  action,  it  is  doubtless  to  be  said  that  it 
indicated  a  readiness  to  honor  the  Roman  bishop;  but 
so  far  was  it  from  bringing  to  manifestation  a  papal  con- 
stitution of  the  Church  that  it  put  the  opposite  on  exhi- 
bition. The  official  whose  prerogative,  in  case  of  conflict- 
ing claims  to  an  episcopal  position,  was  limited  to  a  choice 
between  ratifying  the  decision  of  the  local  tribunal  and 
the  provision  of  a  new  trial,  and  who  besides,  instead  of 
holding  this  prerogative  by  a  right  inherent  in  his  posi- 
tion, needed  to  have  it  conferred  by  a  legislative  act  of 

1  Hist.  Eccl.,  ii.  17.  «  Hist.  Eccl.,  iii.  10. 


166  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

an  assembly,  was  no  true  pope  in  the  later  sense,  and  was 
separated  by  a  whole  diameter  from  the  Vatican  type. 
/  Over  against  the  language  of  compliment  and  contro- 
versial finesse  put  forth  by  individuals,  the  post-Nicene 
age  presents  us  with  one  great  and  decisive  fact.  The 
collective  voice  of  the  Church  never  once  in  that  age 
recognized  in  the  Roman  bishop  a  constitutional  suprem- 
acy over  the  entire  ecclesiastical  domain.  No  one  of  the 
first  six  ecumenical  councils,  not  to  mention  later  assem- 
blies, acknowledged  in  him  any  higher  character  than 
that  of  patriarch.  Within  the  patriarchal  system  one  or 
another  of  them  may  have  granted  to  him  a  loosely  de- 
fined honorary  precedence.  This  much  naturally  resulted 
from  the  force  of  historical  associations.  The  honorary 
precedence,  as  was  clearly  intimated  both  by  the  Council 
of  Constantinople  and  by  that  of  Chalcedon,  was  due  to 
the  distinction  of  the  Roman  patriarchate  as  being  in- 
clusive of  the  ancient  imperial  city.1  It  involved  no 
special  prerogative  for  the  Roman  bishop  outside  of  his 
patriarchate;  and  the  Council  of  Chalcedon  indicated  as 
much  by  affirming  for  the  patriarch  of  Constantinople 
the  same  prerogatives  as  were  exercised  by  his  Roman 
colleague — an  assignment  contradictory  to  the  supposi- 
tion that  the  authority  of  the  former  within  the  limits 
of  his  patriarchate  could  be  crossed  by  that  of  the  latter. 
Now  this  absolute  arrest  of  ecumenical  legislation  at  the 
outlining  of  the  patriarchal  system  has  the  virtue  of  an 
historical  demonstration.  It  shows  beyond  the  possibility 
of  reasonable  challenge  that  the  Church  of  that  age,  taken 
as  a  whole,  knew  nothing  of  a  monarchical  constitution, 


1  See  the  sixth  canon  of  Constantinople  and  the  twenty-eighth  of  Chalce- 
don. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  167 

and  had  no  intention  to  create  such  a  constitution.  The 
pope  may  have  been  there  incipiently,  or  in  the  sense  that 
a  masterful  personality  on  the  episcopal  throne  of  ancient 
Rome  could  be  counted  on  to  employ  the  advantages  of 
his  position  to  push  his  influence  and  to  enlarge  the  circle 
of  his  practical  administration.  Leo  the  Great  (440-461) 
and  Gregory  the  Great  (590-604)  did  this  to  a  conspicu- 
ous degree,  and  sometimes  manifested  a  sense  of  official 
importance  that  was  not  remote  from  a  papal  conscious- 
ness.1 But  the  pope,  as  a  recognized  factor  of  the  ecclesi- 
astical constitution,  was  not  there.  It  is  simply  prepos- 
terous to  suppose  that  he  could  have  been  there  and  yet 
not  come  to  notice  in  a  single  sentence  of  ecumenical 
legislation.  Amid  the  enormous  agitations  of  those  cen- 
turies he  could  not  possibly  have  been  kept  out  of  sight 
in  the  great  representative  assemblies.  Nothing  above 
a  patriarch  with  a  loosely  defined  honorary  primacy  was 
visible,  because,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  constitu- 
tion, as  generally  interpreted,  nothing  higher  was  in 
existence.  And  this  ignoring  of  the  idea  of  the  papacy 
in  the  legislation  of  the  councils  is  paralleled  in  no  small 
degree  in  the  patristic  literature.  Writers  make  no  ref- 
erence to  it  in  instances  where  they  could  hardly  have 
escaped  mentioning  it  had  the  knowledge  of  its  existence 
been  in  their  minds.  Take,  for  example,  the  representa- 
tions of  a  man  who  was  so  much  exercised  about  ranks, 
earthly  and  celestial,  as  the  pseudo  Dionysius.  Had  he 
been  aware  of  the  existence  of  ecclesiastical  monarchy 
in  his  time — probably  near  the  end  of  the  fifth  century — 
he  would  doubtless  have  pictured  the  ecclesiastical  mon- 


1  See  Leo,  Epist.  x,  xii,  civ;  Serm.  iii-v;  Gregory,  Epist.  v.  18,  20,  ai; 
ix.  68. 


168  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

arch.  But  he  has  not  done  so.  In  a  specification  of  the 
grades  of  the  hierarchy  he  stops  short  of  monarchy,  and 
ends  with  coordinate  dignitaries.  Mentioning  as  the 
highest  rank  apostles  and  their  successors,  he  says:  "If 
any  of  these  should  make  a  slip,  let  him  be  corrected  by 
those  who  are  coordinate  with  him."1  An  equivalent 
picture  of  ecclesiastical  ranks  was  sketched  by  Isidore  of 
Seville  in  the  seventh  century.  He  left  the  papal  monarch 
out  of  consideration,  and  enumerated  patriarchs,  arch- 
bishops, metropolitans,  and  bishops  as  constituting  the 
four  ranks  of  the  episcopate.2  In  view  of  this  line  of 
description  it  becomes  doubtful  whether  the  authors  of 
the  most  flattering  references  to  the  dignity  of  the  Roman 
bishop  put  into  their  words  the  proper  papal  sense.  Even 
within  the  limits  of  the  patriarchal  regime,  they  could 
place,  especially  when  writing  from  a  Western  standpoint, 
no  little  emphasis  on  communion  with  Rome  as  a  means 
of  conserving  ecclesiastical  unity.  In  any  event  the  thor- 
oughly dominant  judgment  of  the  Church  in  the  post- 
Nicene  period  recognized  no  higher  rank  than  the  patri- 
archal. The  Vatican  theory  that  bishops  universally  owe 
their  right  of  exercising  jurisdiction  to  the  Roman  bishop 
was  utterly  foreign  to  the  consciousness  of  the  age. 
There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  any  body  of  prelates 
outside  of  the  Roman  patriarchate  ever  so  much  as  en- 
tertained the  thought  of  deriving  their  jurisdiction  from 
that  source.  The  Sardican  canons  constitute  no  objection 
to  this  statement.  Besides  being  destitute  of  ecumenical 
authority,  these  canons  show,  in  that  they  limit  the  power 
which  they  confer  upon  the  Roman  bishop  to  the  con- 

1  Epist.  viii.  §  4. 

*  Dollinger  und  Friedrich,  Das  Papstthum,  Neubearbeitung  von  Janus, 
pp.  la,  13- 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  169 

firmation  of  the  verdict  of  local  tribunals  relative  to  de- 
posed bishops,  or  to  the  provision  of  a  new  local  tribunal, 
that  even  their  f  ramers  had  no  idea  that  bishops  generally 
were  beholden  to  Rome  for  jurisdiction  over  their  epis- 
copal districts.  On  Vatican  premises,  as  indicated  above, 
this  legislation  was  doubly  foolish  and  unwarrantable, 
since  it  undertook  both  to  confer  a  power  inherent  in 
the  papal  office,  and  to  reduce  that  power  far  below  its 
constitutional  measure. 

While  the  theory  of  the  papal  monarchy  was  ignored! 
in  the  legislation  of  the  ecumenical  councils,  it  was  also  j 
strikingly  ignored  in  their  convocation  and  management./ 
In  the  calling  of  the  first  eight  of  these  assemblies  no 
bishop  had  anything  more  than  an  advisory  function, 
and  even  that  much  was  not  always  conspicuous  enough 
to  go  on  record.  They  were  summoned  by  the  authority 
of  the  emperor.  The  evidence  is  quite  lacking  that  the 
bishop  of  Rome  participated  in  any  sense  in  issuing  the 
call  for  the  Council  of  Nicaea.  The  unsupported  assump- 
tion relative  to  his  agency  in  the  matter,  put  forth  long 
after  the  disappearance  of  living  witnesses,  is  more  than 
offset  by  the  silence  of  Eusebius  and  of  the  most  ancient 
documents.  In  calling  the  second  ecumenical  council — 
which,  indeed,  was  not  attended  by  the  Western  prelates 
—the  Roman  bishop,  as  Hefele  confesses,  had  no  part. 
The  third  council  was  convened  by  the  joint  action  of 
the  emperors  of  the  East  and  the  West.  Very  likely  the 
Roman  bishop  was  apprised  of  the  imperial  purpose,  but 
it  does  not  appear  that  he  was  in  any  wise  acknowledged 
as  a  copartner  in  the  calling  of  the  council.  In  the 
negotiations  which  preceded  the  meeting  of  the  fourth 
ecumenical  assembly  Leo  the  Great  took  a  prominent 


170  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

part.  But  his  preference  to  have  the  assembly  in  the 
West  was  not  followed,  and  the  ultimate  call  rested  upon 
the  will  of  the  emperor.  The  connection  of  the  Roman 
bishop  with  the  fifth  ecumenical  council  makes  little  else 
than  a  chapter  of  humiliations.  It  does  not  appear  that 
he  had  any  responsible  agency  in  bringing  about  the 
assembly,  or  any  more  honorable  relation  to  it  than  that 
of  a  forced  compliance  at  the  hands  of  the  autocratic 
Justinian. 

'""  The  papal  theory  of  church  constitution  was  also  con- 
spicuously ignored  in  respect  of  the  presidency  of  these 
^assemblies.  It  is  certain  that  this  in  large  part  fell  to 
the  imperial  commissaries,  and  so  was  not  in  the  hands 
of  the  bishops,  except  in  a  restricted  sense.  As  respects 
the  episcopal  presidency,  which  a  line  of  references  seems 
to  require  us  to  recognize  as  having  existed,  the  Roman 
bishop  was  sparingly  represented.  At  Nicsea  the  presi- 
dential honor  fell  to  Hosius,  bishop  of  Cordova  in  Spain. 
It  is  true  that  the  statement  of  Gelasius  of  Cyzicus,  a 
writer  of  the  fifth  century,  can  be  adduced  for  the  suppo- 
sition that  Hosius  presided  in  the  place  of  the  absent 
Sylvester  of  Rome.  But  the  statement  occurs  in  the 
midst  of  a  paragraph  which  has  every  appearance  of 
being  a  bungling  falsification  of  the  text  of  Eusebius.1 
Such  worthless  testimony  counts  for  nothing  against  the 
substantial  evidence  which  makes  for  the  contrary  conclu- 
sion. On  the  one  hand,  we  have  the  fact  that  there  is 
nothing  in  the  records  of  the  council,  or  in  the  references 
of  contemporary  writers,  to  indicate  that  Hosius  did  not 
act  in  his  own  name.  On  the  other  hand,  we  have  the 
fact  that  the  extraordinary  esteem  of  the  emperor  for  this 

1  Bright,  The  Roman  See  in  the  Early  Church,  pp.  71,  72. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  171 

prelate1  and  the  high  reputation  which  he  enjoyed  in  the 
Church  naturally  pointed  him  out  as  a  suitable  man  for 
the  honor  of  the  presidency.  "Hosius,"  writes  Theodoret, 
"was  the  most  highly  distinguished  of  all  those  who  as- 
sembled at  the  Council  of  Nicaea."2  On  the  ground  of 
historical  probability,  therefore,  it 'is  perfectly  futile  to 
set  up  a  claim  for  the  Roman  bishop  in  relation  to  the 
presidency  of  the  first  ecumenical  council.  It  is  also  mat- 
ter of  history  that  he  did  not  preside  over  the  second 
and  fifth  in  the  list  of  ecumenical  assemblies.  The  presi- 
dency of  the  former  of  these  two  was  in  fact  held,  up  to 
his  death,  by  Meletius,  a  bishop  who  was  not  even  in 
communion  with  Rome  at  the  time.3  At  the  third  ecu- 
menical council,  which  was  a  rather  shabby  specimen  of 
the  ecumenical  genus,  Cyril  of  Alexandria  acted  in  some 
sort  as  the  lieutenant  of  the  Roman  bishop,  and  later  was 
supposed  to  have  presided  in  his  stead,  though  the  fact 
is  not  above  question.4  At  Chalcedon  the  function 
which,  in  the  absence  of  some  obstruction,  the  honorary 
primacy  of  the  Roman  patriarch  would  naturally  bring 
to  him  was  accorded.  The  episcopal  presidency  of  this 
assembly  is  understood  to  have  been  exercised  by  two 
Roman  presbyters  acting  as  representatives  of  Leo  the 
Great. 

In  respect  of  the  ratification  of  their  decrees  the  e 
menical  councils  of  the  post-Nicene  era  cannot  be  said 
to  have  given  any  illustration  of  papal  theory.  It  is  not 
recorded  that  the  earlier  of  them  entertained  the  thought 
of  a  submission  of  their  action  to  the  Roman  bishop.  If 
a  special  measure  of  deference  was  paid  to  Leo  the  Great 

»  Socrates,  Hist.  Eccl.,  i.  7.  »  Hist.  Eccl.,  ii.  15. 

*  Compare  Puller,  The  Primitive  Saints  and  the  See  of  Rome,  pp.  xiv, 
165,  361.  4  Friedrich,  Tagebuch,  pp.  400,  401, 


172  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

by  the  Council  of  Chalcedon  it  was  evidently  with  the 
diplomatic  intent  to  mollify  the  Roman  magnate  and  to 
evoke  his  consent  to  a  piece  of  legislation  which  was 
known  to  be  obnoxious  to  him.  In  its  twenty-eighth 
canon  that  assembly  treated  of  the  patriarchal  rights  of 
the  bishop  of  Constantinople  in  a  way  vastly  more  agree- 
able to  New  Rome  than  to  Old  Rome.  Prudently  alert 
to  the  demand  to  do  something  to  avert  a  rising  storm, 
the  fathers  of  the  council  addressed  Leo  in  complimen- 
tary terms,  and  asked  him  to  confirm  the  canon.  How 
little  of  real  inclination  they  had  to  submit  to  his  decision 
was  disclosed  in  the  sequel.  The  twenty-eighth  canon 
remained  in  force  in  the  East  in  spite  of  the  Roman 
protest.1  It  appears,  moreover,  that  in  condemning  the 
canon  Leo  the  Great  thought  it  expedient  to  rest  on 
conciliar  sanction.  He  pronounced  against  it  as  being 
incompatible  with  the  Nicene  canons.  As  for  the  request 
that  Leo  should  confirm  the  general  body  of  the  Chalce- 
donian  decisions,  which  was  presented  two  years  after 
the  council  by  the  emperor  Marcion,  a  sufficient  explana- 
tion is  afforded  by  the  existing  exigency.  The  request 
was  made  in  order  to  take  away  the  opportunity  of  the 
Monophysites  to  sustain  their  own  opposition  to  the  work 
of  the  council  by  reference  to  the  dubious  attitude  of  the 
Roman  bishop  toward  the  same.  That  this  was  a  promi- 
nent consideration  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  the  em- 
peror made  explicit  mention  of  it  in  his  letter  to  Leo.2 
Manifestly  the  epistles  to  the  Roman  bishop  which  fol- 
lowed the  legislative  action  of  the  council  were  greatly 
influenced  by  a  diplomatic  purpose.  The  real  standpoint 


>  Schaff,  History  of  the  Christian  Church,  III.  280-283. 
1  Epist.  ex,  in  works  of  Leo. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  173 

of  the  council  was  embodied  in  its  legislation.  And  here 
the  ninth  canon,  as  well  as  the  twenty-eighth,  deserves 
notice.  The  former  provides  that  appeals  should  receive 
a  final  decision  at  Constantinople.  Of  course,  it  may  be 
presumed  that  the  Latin  patriarchate  was  not,  in  the  view 
of  the  council,  a  part  of  the  field  from  which  appeals 
might  come  to  the  Eastern  capital.  Still  the  canon  made 
Constantinople  to  contain  the  ultimate  tribunal  for  a  very 
broad  territory,  and  so  ruled  out  the  notion  of  an  all- 
inclusive  jurisdiction  of  the  Roman  bishop.  It  stands  in 
the  undisputed  record  as  an  ecumenical  negation  of  the 
papal  theory. 

So  mountainous  is  the  barrier  raised  against  the  papal 
theory  by  the  record  of  the  ecumenical  councils  that  it 
seems  to  be  almost  a  work  of  supererrogation  to  employ 
any  further  means  of  criticism  against  that  theory.  But 
an  interesting  test  may  be  secured  by  consulting  the  trend 
of  the  extant  writings  of  fathers  of  exceptional  intelli- 
gence and  activity,  at  once  distinguished  as  theologians 
and  as  men  of  affairs.  From  this  class  none  can  be  more 
appropriately  selected  than  Basil  and  Augustine,  the  one 
representing  the  Greek  branch  of  the  Church  and  the 
other  the  Latin.  To  scan  the  writings  of  these  two  men 
is  very  much  like  viewing  an  authentic  cross-section  of 
the  age.  Take  the  case^of^Basil  (329-379).  He  lived 
in  a  time  of  stirring  events,  and  has  left  an  extraor- 
dinarily effective  mirror  of  his  relations  to  them  and 
judgments  upon  them  in  a  body  of  three  hundred  and 
sixty-six  epistles.  How  much  indication  of  a  knowledge 
of  a  monarchical  or  papal  constitution  of  the  Church 
does  he  give  in  these  writings,  so  well  calculated  to  re- 
flect the  polity  of  the  time?  None  whatever.  While  he 


174  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

is  free  to  confess  the  great  need  of  aid  from  the  West 
for  the  struggling  orthodox  party  of  the  East,  he  refers, 
as  a  rule,  to  the  Western  bishops  generally,  and  not  to 
the  occupant  of  the  Roman  see.1  Nowhere  does  he  hint 
at  the  concentration  of  sovereignty  in  the  Roman  bishop. 
His  most  complimentary  utterances  in  no  wise  pass  above 
the  level  which  might  have  been  reached  by  anyone  who 
was  cognizant  of  the  practical  potency  of  the  Roman 
magnate  and  of  the  patriarchal  constitution  of  the 
Church.2 

From  Augustine  (353-430),  inasmuch  as  he  lived 
within  the  limits  of  the  Roman  patriarchate,  we  should 
expect  more  distinct  tokens  of  a  sense  of  connection  with 
Rome  than  are  found  in  the  writings  of  Basil.  More- 
over, the  demands  of  the  struggle  with  the  Donatists 
gave  him  much  the  same  incentive  to  emphasize  the  need 
of  keeping  in  communion  with  the  great  apostolic  church 
of  the  West  which  was  conspicuous  in  Optatus  of  Mileve. 
Nevertheless,  even  in  his  controversial  writings  against 
the  Donatists,  Augustine  abundantly  reveals  that  he  did 
not  conceive  of  the  constitution  of  the  Church  in  the 
genuine  papal  sense.  He  mentions  the  apostolic  see  of 
Rome  as  if  he  counted  it  simply  a  conspicuous  factor  in 
the  basis  of  catholic  unity,  and  not  by  any  means  the 
whole  basis.  He  says  to  the  Donatists :  "I  bring  against 
you  the  charge  of  schism,  which  you  will  deny,  but  which 
I  will  straightway  go  on  to  prove;  for,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  you  do  not  communicate  with  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth,  nor  with  those  churches  which  were  founded  by 
the  labor  of  the  apostles."*  Again,  in  answer  to  a  possible 

1  See  Epist.  Ixvi,  xc,  ccxxxix,  ccxlii.  *  Epist.  Ixix,  Ixx. 

*  Contra  Litteras  Petil.,  ii.   §  37.     Compare  ii,  §  118;  Epist.  xliii.  §7; 
Epist.  ccxxxii.  §3. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  175 

plea  of  the  schismatics  that  the  Roman  bishop  and  the 
other  bishops  beyond  the  sea,  who  had  acted  as  his  col- 
leagues, were  not  authorized  to  disturb  the  verdict  of  a 
certain  African  tribunal,  he  reminds  them  that  the  Roman 
bishop  and  his  associates  had  the  authority  of  a  commis- 
sion from  the  emperor  to  do  what  they  did.  Furthermore, 
he  argues  that  if  the  Donatists  had  really  desired  a  just 
settlement,  they  could  readily  have  discovered  the  means 
of  its  consummation.  On  the  supposition  that  the  bishops 
who  decided  the  case  at  Rome  were  not  good  judges, 
"there  still  remained  a  plenary  council  of  the  universal 
Church,  in  which  these  judges  themselves  might  be  put 
on  their  defense;  so  that,  if  they  were  convicted  of  mis- 
take, their  decisions  might  be  reversed."1  Such  language 
is  decidedly  remote  from  disclosing  the  believer  in  the 
papal  monarchy.  In  the  light  of  it  we  can  see  what  a 
disreputable  fraud  is  practiced  against  Augustine  when 
the  words,  "Rome  has  spoken,  the  case  is  ended,"  are 
set  forth  as  representative  of  his  standpoint.  His  stand- 
point was  not  adequately  represented  by  the  ill-considered 
sentence  which  he  actually  uttered,  and  in  that  sentence 
he  mentioned  two  synods  as  preceding  and  giving  counte- 
nance to  the  judgment  of  the  apostolic  see.2  That  he 
was  not  minded  to  take  the  mere  word  of  the  Roman 
bishop  as  a  finality  was  sufficiently  demonstrated.  He 
was  undoubtedly  in  full  accord  with  the  action  of  the 
North  African  clergy  in  correcting  Zosimus  as  respects 
his  dealing  with  the  Pelagians.  More  significantly  still, 
he  excused  Cyprian's  position  respecting  the  rebaptism 
of  heretics,  on  the  ground  that  the  Church  in  his  age  had 

»  Epist.  xliii.  §§  14,  19. 

2  Serm.  cxxxi.     Jam  enim,  de  hac  causa,  duo  concilia  missa  sunt  ad 
sedem  apo$tolicam,  inde  etiam  rescripta  venerunt,  Causa  finita  est, 


iy6  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

not  rendered  an  authoritative  decision  on  that  subject,1 
a  form  of  statement  amounting  to  a  declaration  that  the 
voice  of  the  Roman  bishop  was  not  authoritative,  since 
that  prelate  had  rendered  his  decision  in  very  plain  terms, 
and  even  made  intemperate  efforts  to  force  its  acceptance 
upon  the  Church  in  Cyprian's  region.  In  addition  to  all 
the  rest,  Augustine  dealt  very  unkindly  with  the  demands 
of  the  papal  theory  in  the  matter  of  scriptural  interpreta- 
tion. He  seems  not  to  have  admitted  in  his  matured 
exegesis  that  Christ,  in  Matt.  xvi.  18,  named  Peter  the 
rock  upon  which  he  would  build  his  Church.  "On  this 
very  account,"  he  writes,  "the  Lord  said,  'On  this  rock 
I  will  build  my  Church,'  because  Peter  had  said,  'Thou 
art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God.'  On  this  rock, 
therefore,  he  said,  which  thou  hast  confessed,  I  will 
build  my  Church.  For  the  Rock  was  Christ."2  In  the 
same  connection  he  interprets  the  position  of  Peter  in 
receiving  the  promise  of  the  keys  as  distinctively  repre- 
sentative or  symbolical.  Therein  "he  represented  the 
universal  Church."  As  John  reclining  on  the  Saviour's 
bosom  typified  the  whole  Church  drinking  from  the  foun- 
tain of  the  divine  breast,  so  Peter,  in  receiving  the 
promise  of  the  keys,  typified  the  binding  and  loosing 
prerogatives  which  were  to  accrue  to  the  whole  Church. 
Elsewhere,  also,  Augustine  plainly  expressed  his  judg- 
ment that  Peter,  in  the  matter  of  the  keys,  was  made  a 
type  of  the  Church  rather  than  the  bearer  of  any  exclu- 
sive authority.  "Did  Peter,"  he  asks,  "receive  those  keys, 
and  Paul  not  receive  them  ?  Did  Peter  receive  them,  and 
John  and  James  and  the  rest  of  the  apostles  not  receive 


1  De  Bapt.  contr.  Donat.,  ii.  §  5. 

*  Tract  in  Joan.,  cxxiv.    Compare  Retract,  i.  ai.  i;  Serm.  cclxx. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  177 

them?  Or,  are  not  those  keys  in  the  Church,  where 
sins  are  daily  remitted?  But,  since  Peter  was  sym- 
bolically representing  the  Church,  what  was  given  to  him 
singly  was  given  to  the  Church.  So,  then,  Peter  bore 
the  figure  of  the  Church."1  It  appears,  accordingly,  that 
Augustine  was  quite  consistent  in  not  representing  the 
Roman  bishop  to  have  received  from  Peter  a  monarchical 
authority  over  the  Church.  He  did  not  suppose  that 
Peter  himself  was  the  possessor  of  such  an  authority. 

Reference  has  been  made  to  the  advantage  which,  with 
the  progressive  unfoldment  of  the  hierarchical  system,  ; 
necessarily  accrued  to  the  Roman  bishop  from  the  im- 
perial associations  of  his  position.  In  the  post-Nicene 
period  striking  illustration  was  given  of  the  extent  of  this 
advantage.  The  rank  of  the  city  determined  the  rank\ 
of  the  resident  bishop.  Though  Jerusalem  was  they^ 
mother  of  all  the  churches,  her  bishop  was  the  latest  to 
be  numbered  among  the  patriarchs,  and  remained  at  the 
end  of  the  list.  The  inferior  importance  of  the  city  was 
reflected  in  the  rank  of  her  bishop.  Antioch,  though  the 
second  center  of  primitive  Christianity,  was  compelled 
to  see  her  patriarch  rated,  in  the  scale  of  importance, 
after  the  head  of  the  church  of  Alexandria.  The  greater 
metropolis  took  the  greater  episcopal  distinction.  Finally 
the  bishop  of  Constantinople,  though  relatively,  if  not 
absolutely,  destitute  of  the  advantage  of  honorable  asso- 
ciations with  the  apostolic  age,  was  able,  just  because 
Constantinople  took  rank  as  "New  Rome,"  to  overtop  all 
rivals  in  the  East,  whether  at  Jerusalem,  Antioch,  or 
Alexandria.  In  all  probability  he  would  have  been  a 
most  formidable  rival  to  the  bishop  of  Rome,  in  the  race 

1  Serm.  cxlix. 


178  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

for  episcopal  precedence,  had  not  the  latter  begun  to 
enjoy  the  benefit  of  imperial  associations  nearly  three  cen^ 
turies  earlier.  Thus  we  have  in  the  form  of  the  clearest 
kind  of  an  object  lesson  an  explanation  of  the  greatness 
of  the  Roman  bishop.  It  was  an  offspring  of  the  great- 
ness of  imperial  Rome.  The  apostolic  associations  of  the 
Roman  see  were  undoubtedly  helpful;  but  they  were  of 
secondary  efficacy.  Nor  is  this  conclusion  refuted  by 
the  fact  that  the  Roman  bishop  and  his  eulogists  gave 
a  chief  emphasis  to  those  associations.  Of  course  they 
did.  They  could  not  have  been  so  foolish  as  to  magnify 
a  secular  ground  of  precedence  when  one  much  more 
suitable  to  the  uses  of  ecclesiastical  ambition  and  client- 
ship  was  available.  So  we  see,  from  this  point  of  view, 
the  apocryphal  character  of  the  supposition  that  the 
original  constitution  of  the  Church  provided  for  a  line 
of  popes  from  Peter  onward.  History  not  only  shows 
that  there  was  no  line  of  genuine  popes  in  the  early 
Church,  but  also  gives  a  perfectly  intelligible  explanation 
of  such  advance  toward  the  papal  rank  as  was  actually 
achieved  by  the  Roman  bishops. 

Were  it  necessary,  on  a  question  of  original  church 

[constitution,  to  weigh  evidence  beyond  the  patristic 
period,  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  discover  grounds  of 
objection  to  the  papal  theory  in  succeeding  times.  Of 
three  things  in  particular  account  might  be  made.  In  the 
first  place,  notice  might  be  taken  of  the  fact  that  the  ex- 
tensive forgeries,  which  were  perpetrated  in  the  middle 
ages  in  behalf  of  the  papal  power,  are  so  much  testimony 
that  an  inadequate  basis  for  that  power  was  supplied  by  the 
patristic  period.  In  the  second  place,  emphasis  might  be 
put  upon  the  historic  truth  that  the  Eastern  branch  of  the 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  179 

Church  persisted  in  refusing  to  give  a  legislative  sanction 
to  any  general  supremacy  of  the  Roman  bishop,  and 
finally  in  the  eleventh  century  solemnized  its  repudiation 
of  obligation  to  follow  Roman  standards  by  withdrawing 
from  communion  with  the  Latin  Church.  And  finally, 
reference  might  be  made  to  the  pronounced  Gallican  legis- 
lation of  the  councils  convened  in  the  first  half  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  a  legislation  which  indeed  provided  a 
standing  ground  for  a  pope,  but  not  for  such  a  pope  as 
was  set  before  the  face  of  men  by  the  Vatican  Council. 
There  is,  however,  in  the  present  connection,  only 
moderate  occasion  to  deal  with  these  grounds  of  refuta- 
tion of  the  papal  theory,  and  we  shall  content  ourselves 
with  such  reference  to  one  or  another  of  them  as  the  fol- 
lowing theme  may  require. 

VII. — CRITICISM  OF  THE  DOGMA  OF  PAPAL 
INFALLIBILITY 

All  facts  and  considerations  adduced  in  the  preceding 
section  against  the  theory  of  papal  supremacy  enter,  to 
the  full  extent  of  their  significance,  into  the  disproof  of 
the  theory  of  papal  infallibility.  The  latter  but  gives 
expression  to  a  special  branch  of  the  sovereignty  asserte 
by  the  former.  Official  infallibility  in  the  Romish  syste 
with  its  doctrine  of  an  infallible  Church,  is  a  corollary 
from  official  supremacy.  It  is  just  because  the  pope  i 
held  to  be  by  divine  right  the  supreme  head  of  the  Church 
on  earth,  armed  with  an  authority  from  which  there  is 
no  appeal,  that  he  is  credited  with  the  right  to  issue  irre- 
formable  decisions  in  the  sphere  of  faith  and  morals. 
Take  away  his  supremacy,  make  room  for  an  authority 


i8o  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

superior  to  that  of  the  pope,  or  even  coordinate  there- 
with, and  the  logical  basis  is  gone  for  infallibility  in  the 
sense  of  the  Vatican  decree.     The  superior  authority 
would  be  competent  to  revise  papal  decisions,  and  the  co- 
ordinate authority  could  rightly  require  that  nothing  be 
given  out  as  a  finality  without  its  consent.    Most  unmis- 
takably, therefore,  the  existing  dogma  of  papal  infalli- 
bility is  refuted  by  all  the  evidence  which  goes  to  show 
that  the  apostolic  Church  knew  nothing  about  a  suprem- 
acy of  governing  authority  in  Peter,  and  that  the  post- 
apostolic    Church   through   century   after   century    was 
equally  ignorant  of  a  constitutional  supremacy  of  the 
Roman  bishop  over  the  ecclesiastical  domain  as  a  whole. 
With  this  thought  in  view  we  may  properly  dispense 
with  an  extended  consideration  of  the  scriptural  evidence 
alleged  for  papal  infallibility,  and  may  also  abridge  our 
review  of  the  history  of  the  first  six  centuries.     As  re- 
Aspects  the  scriptural  data,  there  is  very  slight  occasion  to 
{  award  any  further  consideration  to  Matt.  xvi.   I6-I9.1 
/  Neither  for  Peter  nor  for  the  Church  is  there  any  note 
(   of  infallibility  here  in  the  technical  ecclesiastical  sense, 
/  and  the  Roman  bishop  does  not  come  into  view  at  all. 
(     The  same  may  be  said  of  the  other  two  main  passages 
\  which  are  cited  in  the  infallibility  decree,  namely,  Luke 
xxii.  31,  32,  and  John  xxi.  15-17.     Apart  from  a  pre- 
existing faith  in  the  inerrancy  of  Ultramontane  exegesis 
no  one  can  discover  in  these  verses  the  slightest  sugges- 
tion of  a  line  of  infallible  popes.    As  Archbishop  Kenrick 
saw  and  declared,  at  the  time  of  the  Vatican  Council,  the 
words  recorded  in  Luke  had  sole  reference  to  the  personal 
needs  of  Peter.2    On  the  eve  of  the  apostle's  desperate  sin 

1  See  chap,  i,  sect,  iv;  chap,  ii,  sect  vi.  *Concio,  p.  33. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  181 

in  denying  his  Master,  and  in  order  to  furnish  before- 
hand a  means  of  recovery,  the  compassionate  Christ  told 
Peter  that  he  had  prayed  for  him  that  his  faith  might  not 
fail,  and  furthermore  took  pains  to  provide  for  the  future 
enheartenment  of  the  fallen  man  by  intimating  that  in 
spite  of  his  hour  of  weakness  and  shame  he  might  even 
become  a  source  of  strength  and  stability  to  his  brethren. 
There  is  no  reference  here  to  Peter  as  an  inerrant  dogma- 
tist. Christ  prayed  for  him,  not  that  he  might  be  saved 
from  every  aberration  in  theological  theory,  but  that  his 
living,  practical  confidence  in  his  Lord  and  spirit  of  loyal 
adhesion  to  him  might  not  be  fatally  wrecked;  and  the 
office  anticipated  for  the  apostle,  when  once  he  should  be 
lifted  out  of  the  pit  of  his  dismal  apostasy,  was  simply 
the  office  of  infusing  the  like  disposition  of  confidence 
and  loyalty  into  his  brethren.  To  take  faith  in  this  con- 
nection in  the  sense  of  a  bond  to  orthodoxy  or  a  lien  on 
correct  dogmatics  is  to  smother  under  a  dry,  artificial, 
scholastic  conceit  the  sense  to  which  every  word  and  cir- 
cumstance of  this  dramatic  passage  bear  testimony.  The 
passage  contains  no  assurance  of  dogmatic  infallibility 
for  Peter  himself,  much  less  for  a  line  of  good,  bad,  and 
indifferent  officials  who  may  assume  to  wear  the  Petrine 
badge.  The  like  remark  applies  to  the  Johannine  verses. 
These  constitute,  in  fact,  just  the  fitting  sequel  to  the 
verses  in  Luke.  The  disciple  who  had  professed  special 
love  to  his  Master  had  figured  in  the  shameful  scene  of 
the  threefold  denial.  While  that  scene  was  still  a  matter 
of  bitter  remembrance  Christ  deftly  recalled  it  by  the 
thrice-repeated  question,  "Simon,  lovest  thou  me?"  The 
question  was  well  adapted  to  stir  to  recollection  of  the 
rash  boast  of  superior  fidelity,  as  the  repeated  exhorta- 


182  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

tion,  "Feed  my  sheep,"  was  fitted  to  emphasize  in  the 
mind  of  the  rebuked  and  grieved  disciple  the  demand  to 
prove  thereafter  his  devotion  and  love  by  pastoral  fidelity. 
/  The  entire  historical  picture  is  so  thoroughly  individual 
/  in  character,  so  intimately  and  delicately  related  to  the 
V.  case  of  Peter,  that  it  is  enough  to  give  one  a  sense  of 
profanation  to  have  the  arbitrary  theorist  come  along 
and  try  to  metamorphose  it  into  a  charter  for  a  perpetual 
dogmatic  absolutism.  In  connection  either  with  the 
Lucan  or  the  Johannine  passage  the  infallibilist  has  no 
more  right  to  find  any  reference  to  the  pope  than  the  anti- 
infallibilist  has  to  infer,  on  the  ground  of  words  ad- 
dressed to  Peter,  that  each  succeeding  bishop  of  Rome 
will  be  guilty  of  a  profane  denial  of  Christ,  will  need  to 
be  converted,  and  can  properly  be  represented  as  a  mouth- 
piece of  Satan.  The  words  used  in  the  former  class  of 
instances  have  every  appearance  of  being  as  strictly  lim- 
ited to  a  personal  application  as  are  those  in  the  latter 
class. 

Patristic  exegesis  was  often  lacking  in  sobriety;  but 
in  the  first  six  centuries  it  was  not  extravagant  enough 
to  serve,  to  an  appreciable  degree,  the  demands  of  the 
Vatican  theory  of  papal  infallibility.  The  fathers  of  that 
period  did  not  interpret  the  biblical  texts  relative  to  Peter 
in  the  sense  of  that  theory.1  To  one  who  has  looked  at 
all  extensively  into  their  writings  the  average  attempt  to 
read  the  infallibility  dogma  into  their  interpretation  of 
the  given  texts  can  only  serve  to  mirror  the  dearth  of 
materials  appropriate  for  such  an  enterprise.  Take  so 

1  For  significant  instances  of  interpretation  see  Origen,  Comm.  in  Matt. 
xii.  10,  ii,  14;  Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  Catech.  xi.  3;  Basil,  Horn.  xx.  4;  Cyril 
of  Alexandria,  Comm.  in  Joan.  xxi.  15-17;  Hilary,  De  Trin.,  vi.  36-38; 
Theodoret,  Orat.  de  Divina  Charitate;  Chrysostom,  In  Matt.,  Horn.  liv.  a, 
Ixxxii.  3. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  183 

respectable  an  apologist  as  Schanz.  It  can  safely  be  said 
that  not  one  of  his  witnesses,  belonging  to  the  period  in 
question,  outside  the  interested  party  seated  in  the  epis- 
copal chair  at  Rome,  is  truly  a  witness  to  a  faith  in  the 
infallibility  of  a  perpetual  succession  of  Roman  bishops, 
or  even  to  the  imagination  of  such  a  thing.  A  good 
proportion  of  the  passages  cited  by  him  might  better  be 
used  to  prove  that  their  authors  had  not  so  much  as  heard 
of  an  inerrant  tribunal  established  in  any  single  episcopal 
seat.  The  rest  of  them,  where  not  simply  the  language 
of  compliment,  recognize  only  such  official  prominence 
and  responsibility  as  might  be  attached,  irrespective  of  a 
charism  of  infallibility,  to  the  incumbent  of  a  great  apos- 
tolic seat  and  the  possessor  of  an  honorary  primacy  in 
the  patriarchal  system.1  Schanz,  in  truth,  half  confesses 
the  poverty  and  inconclusiveness  of  the  testimonies  ad- 
duced by  admitting  that  in  clearness  and  fullness  they 
distinctly  fall  short  of  the  claims  which  the  Roman 
bishops  have  put  forth  in  their  own  behalf.2  This  resort 
to  the  estimate  which  the  interested  party  has  made  of 
itself  has  an  appearance  of  faulty  procedure,  and  is  very 
poorly  justified  by  the  plea  of  Schanz  that  prophets  and 
priests  are  the  best  judges  of  their  own  vocation.  False 
prophets  are  nothing  unheard  of,  and,  if  priests  are  to  be 
trusted  to  estimate  themselves,  then  the  caste  of  Brah- 
mans  should  be  given  full  liberty  to  require  the  world  to 
rate  them  as  a  kind  of  gods  on  earth.  However,  the 
critic  of  the  infallibility  dogma  has  very  little  reason  for 

1  It  is  noticeable  that  the  witnesses  for  papal  infallibility  which  Billot 
(Tractatus  de  ecclesia  Christi,  Tomus  Tertius,  pp.  179-187)  has  thought 
it  advisable  to  cite  all  belonged  to  the  Latin  patriarchate,  and  for  the  most 
part  had  occasion  to  emphasize  against  schismatic  parties  the  worth  of 
communion  with  the  one  church  of  the  West  distinguished  by  apostolic  asso- 
ciations. Judged  by  the  tenor  of  their  writings,  not  one  of  them  is  a  wit- 
ness to  the  Vatican  dogma.  2  Christian  Apology,  III.  $isff. 


i84  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

wishing  to  shut  out  the  testimony  of  the  Roman  bishops 
of  the  first  six  centuries.  Naturally  a  propensity  to  of- 
ficial boasting  found  expression  now  and  then  in  high- 
sounding  words  about  the  orthodoxy  and  the  doctrinal 
responsibilities  of  the  successors  of  Peter.  But  not  a 
single  instance  is  on  record  of  a  serious  assertion  of  any- 
thing like  the  plenary  independent  sovereignty  over  the 
dogmatic  domain  which  is  affirmed  by  the  Vatican  decree. 
Even  Leo  the  Great,  the  most  masterful  personality  in 
the  entire  list  of  Roman  bishops  for  those  centuries,  was 
remote  from  indulging  in  an  assertion  of  that  kind. 
While  he  laid  considerable  stress  on  the  offices  of  Peter 
in  strengthening  the  brethren  and  feeding  the  flock,  he 
made  a  very  dim  connection  between  these  offices  and 
the  prerogatives  of  the  Roman  bishop.1  In  fact,  it  was 
only  through  the  agency  of  Peter  as  heavenly  patron  that 
the  Petrine  offices  were  represented  by  him  to  have  been 
continued.  Referring  to  the  injunction  laid  upon  the 
apostle  to  feed  Christ's  sheep,  he  added:  "Which  also 
now  without  doubt  he  does,  and  follows  the  command  of 
his  Lord  as  a  pious  pastor,  confirming  us  by  his  exhorta- 
tions, and  not  ceasing  to  pray  for  us,  that  we  may  not 
be  overcome  by  any  temptation."  Between  being  thus 
assisted  by  a  patron  saint  and  replacing  him  in  the  world 
as  the  possessor  of  an  infallible  magisterium  the  distance 
is  manifestly  immense.  In  the  reference  of  Pelagius  II 
to  the  gospel  texts  a  somewhat  more  significant  relation 
between  the  Petrine  offices  and  the  Roman  bishop  may  be 
implied  than  that  which  is  pictured  in  the  statements  of 
Leo  the  Great ;  but  so  far  was  the  former  from  claiming 
outright  a  doctrinal  infallibility  that  he  seems  not  to  have 

1  Serm.  iv;  Epist.  Ixxxiii. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  185 

ascribed  as  much  as  that  to  Peter  himself.1  In  short, 
we  judge  the  truth  to  be  with  the  Old  Catholic  contention 
that  the  proper  Vatican  dogma  had  not  a  single  advocate, 
even  among  the  Roman  bishops  of  the  first  six  centuries.2 
Of  course,  it  would  matter  little,  as  respects  the  merits 
of  the  dogma,  if  one  and  another  advocate  had  appeared. 
The  sense  of  official  importance,  stimulated  by  imperial 
associations,  might  easily  attain  an  extravagant  growth 
in  less  than  six  centuries. 

While  thus  the  expressions  of  individual  opinion,  which^ 
are  claimed  on  the  side  of  a  recognition  of  the  infallibility  I 
of  the  Roman  bishop,  reduce  under  close  inspection  to  a) 
paltry  residuum,  continental  facts  offer  their  conclusive 
testimony  that  the  early  Church  knew  nothing  of  an  in-j 
fallible  potentate  at  Rome  armed  with  a  supreme  author- 
ity in  the  field  of  doctrinal  decisions.    Through  the  l 
period  of  almost  incessant  controversy  reaching  from 
320  to  680  he  was  not  in  a  single  instance  asked  or  per- 
mitted by  the  Church  as  a  whole  to  fix  a  point  of  dogm< 
Theological  warfare  was  conducted  and  settled  precisely1 
as  it  would  have  been  had  the  Christian  world  enter- 
tained no  suspicion  of  the  existence  of  an  infallible  offi- 
cial.    The  ecumenical  council  was  regarded  as  the  one 
tribunal  competent  to  make  decisions  binding  on  the  uni- 
versal Church.    Independently  of  the  council  the  Roman 
bishop  could  impose  nothing  as  a  matter  of  common  obli- 
gation.    Within  the  council  he  was  sometimes  an  inap- 
preciable factor,  and  was  never  a  lord  or  master  to  whom 
the  assembled  bishops  felt  bound  to  give  heed.     If  a 
large  measure  of  deference  was  paid  to  Leo  the  Great  at 

1  Epist.  iii,  v. 

2  See  in  particular  the  judicial  review  of  the  evidence  by  Langen,  Das 
Vaticanische  Dogma. 


186  THE   ROMAN    TYPE 

Chalcedon,  it  was  because  this  representative  of  the 
Roman  see  was  an  eminent  theologian  as  well  as  a  potent 
administrator,  and  had  written  a  doctrinal  letter  which 
promised  a  settlement  to  the  terrible  and  exhausting 
Christological  controversy.  It  was  not  assumed  by  Leo, 
nor  imagined  by  the  council,  that  he  had  any  sovereign 
jurisdiction  in  the  matter  at  issue.  The  exclamation 
which  followed  the  reading  of  his  letter,  "Peter  has  spoken 
through  Leo!"  is  of  no  significance  whatever  as  respects 
doctrinal  authority.  Equally  complimentary  words  were 
uttered  in  the  same  breath  respecting  Cyril  of  Alexandria, 
and  the  teaching  of  Leo's  letter  was  approved  simply  be- 
cause it  was  agreeable  to  the  convictions  of  the  assembly.1 
Facts  of  this  order,  we  contend,  afford  overwhelming 
evidence  of  what  the  church  constitution  of  that  age  was 
in  the  ecumenical  point  of  view.  In  any  fair  review  of 
history  they  must  be  brought  to  the  front.  To  take  a 
chance  statement  here  and  there  from  individual  writers, 
and  to  overlook  besides  the  qualifying  considerations 
which  belong  with  these  as  well  as  the  great  number  of 
opposed  statements,  may  suit  very  well  the  needs  of  the 
apologist;  but  such  procedure  is  outside  of  and  beneath 
historical  science.  If  the  true  canons  of  an  historical 
judgment  are  to  be  applied,  the  primacy  must  be  given, 
in  connection  with  an  effort  to  weigh  the  testimony  of 
an  age,  to  the  great  representative  events  which  voiced 
the  collective  thought  and  conviction.  When  this  course 
is  pursued  on  the  present  theme  the  verdict  cannot  stand 
in  doubt^The  verdict  must  be  that  the  Church  which 
/fhrbugn"  centuries,  and  amid  the  most  pressing  occasions 
,  for  doctrinal  settlements,  never  had  recourse  to  an  infalli- 

1  Mansi,  Conciliorum  Collectio,  VI.  971-976. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  187 

ble  vicegerent  at  Rome  did  not  believe  in  the  existence) 
of  such  an  official.  _>/ 

A  somewhat  striking  comment  on  the  tenor  of  the  his- 
torical evidence  is  being  furnished  by  Roman  Catholic 
writers.  One  and  another  of  them  give  a  hint  of  an  un- 
easy consciousness  respecting  the  bearing  of  the  early 
Christian  records  on  the  high  papal  claims,  in  that  they 
are  inclined  to  speak  disparagingly  of  the  competency  of 
historical  investigation  to  find  out  the  truth  apart  from 
a  close  alliance  with  dogmatics.1  The  carrying  out  of 
this  point  of  view  would  obviously  tend  to  a  slackened 
ambition  for  historical  research.  Doubtless  the  passages 
most  serviceable  in  sustaining  the  established  dogmas 
would  continue  to  be  brought  forward,  but  for  an  earnest 
all-sided  investigation  there  would  be  no  adequate  motive. 
The  Vatican  dogmas  tend  unmistakably  to  lower  the  in- 
centives to  a  comprehensive  study  of  the  patristic  records. 

Even  in  the  middle  ages,  and  within  the  limits  of  Latin 
Christendom,  great  communities  gave  striking  demon- 
strations of  their  ignorance  respecting  the  privilege  and 
obligation  to  submit  disputed  questions  to  an  infallible 
oracle  at  Rome.  The  predestinarian  controversy,  which 
was  excited  in  France  near  the  middle  of  the  ninth  cen- 
tury by  the  teaching  of  Gottschalk,  was  treated  by  the 
local  authorities  as  purely  their  own  concern.  Any  in- 
tervention which  the  pope  may  have  attempted,  in  re- 
sponse to  the  appeal  of  the  condemned  and  sorely  pun- 
ished monk,  seems  to  have  been  met  with  indifference. 
In  connection  with  the  controversy  over  the  religious 

1  Granderath,  Geschichte  des  vatikanischen  Konzils,  II.  271;  Billot, 
De  Immutabilitate  Traditionis  contra  Modernam  Haeresim  Evolutionismi, 
second  edit.,  1907,  passim. 


i88  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

use  of  images,  about  a  half  century  earlier,  a  still  more 
striking  exhibition  of  independence  of  papal  judgment 
was  given.  While  the  pope  approved  the  decision  of  the 
Second  Council  of  Nicaea  in  favor  of  image  worship, 
Charlemagne  and  the  clergy  of  his  realm  repudiated  that 
decision.  At  the  Synod  of  Frankfurt  in  794  they  gave 
full  proof  of  their  adhesion  to  the  platform  of  the  Libri 
Carolini,  which  had  been  issued  four  years  previously, 
and  which,  though  rejecting  the  iconoclastic  extreme, 
contained  a  very  sharp  criticism  of  the  practice  of  image 
worship.  Again  in  the  following  reign  the  Prankish 
clergy,  at  an  assembly  in  Paris  in  825,  used  their  privilege 
to  dissent  from  the  pope.  Indeed,  they  scarcely  fell  short 
of  ridiculing  papal  apologetics.  Referring  to  a  letter  on 
the  subject  by  Adrian  I,  they  said :  "He  inserted  in  the 
same  letter  certain  testimonies  of  the  holy  fathers,  which 
according  to  the  measure  of  our  understandings  are  thor- 
oughly irrelevant  (valde  absona),  and  without  the  slight- 
est pertinency  to  the  question  at  issue."1  Evidently  these 
men  had  never  heard  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Roman 
pontiff,  or,  if  the  claim  to  such  endowment  had  come  to 
their  knowledge,  were  ready  to  treat  it  as  farcical. 

Among  the  historic  denials  of  papal  infallibility,  the 
two  which  most  powerfully  supplement  the  practical  nega- 
tion of  the  first  six  centuries  are  those  contained  in  the 
action  of  the  sixth  ecumenical  council  (680),  and  of  the 
Council  of  Constance  (1414-1418)  together  with  that  of 
the  Council  of  Basle  in  its  earlier  sessions  (1431-1437). 
The  first  named,  endeavoring  to  give  a  finishing  blow 
to  the  Monothelite  heresy,  pronounced  the  anathema 


1  Hefele,     Conciliengeschichte,    §4»s;    Dollinger    und     Friedrich,     Das 
Papstthum,  pp.  337,  338. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  189 

against  its  principal  representatives  and  supporters. 
Among  those  who  fell  under  this  capital  censure  was 
Pope  Honorius  I  (621-638).  It  was  judged  that  in  his 
letters  to  Sergius,  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  he  had 
given  his  sanction  to  the  distinctive  Monothelite  conten- 
tion respecting  the  presence  of  only  a  single  operation  of 
will  in  the  incarnate  Christ.  Accordingly,  he  was  con- 
demned as  one  of  the  ringleaders  in  the  camp  of  the 
heretics.  After  laying  Sergius  and  others  under  anathe- 
ma the  council  proceeded:  "We  have  provided  that  to- 
gether with  these,  Honorius,  who  was  pope  of  ancient 
Rome,  should  be  cast  out  of  God's  holy  Catholic  Church, 
and  anathematized,  because  we  have  discovered,  through 
the  writings  which  he  addressed  to  Sergius,  that  in  all 
things  he  followed  his  view  and  confirmed  his  impious 
dogmas."  In  the  letter  of  notification  sent  to  Pope 
Agatho,  whose  death  occurred  too  soon  for  him  to  receive 
the  communication,  the  council  declared :  "We  have  over- 
thrown the  tower  of  the  heretics  and  slain  them  through 
the  anathema,  namely,  Theodore  of  Pharan,  Sergius, 
Honorius,  Cyrus,  etc."  The  seventh  and  eighth  ecu- 
menical councils  approved  the  action  of  the  sixth,  and 
mentioned  Honorius  as  being  equally  with  the  Monothe- 
lite leaders  of  the  East  a  subject  of  the  anathema ;  indeed, 
in  the  one  case  the  name  of  Honorius  is  placed  right  in 
the  midst  of  the  names  of  the  Eastern  leaders,  and  in  the 
other  is  located  before  that  of  Cyrus  of  Alexandria.  The 
emperor,  in  the  edict  which  he  issued  for  the  confirma- 
tion of  the  action  of  the  sixth  council,  numbered  Hon- 
orius among  those  who  had  infected  the  churches  with 
their  false  teachings,  and  rated  him  along  with  Theodore 
of  Pharan,  Sergius,  etc.,  as  a  subject  for  the  anathema, 


igo  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

"since  he  agreed  with  them  in  everything,  ran  with  them, 
and  served  as  a  support  to  heresy."  That  in  the  Western 
version  of  the  proceedings  of  the  sixth  council  Honorius 
was  numbered  among  anathematized  heretics  is  indicated 
by  perfectly  unambiguous  tokens.  One  of  these  occurs 
in  the  biography  of  Leo  II,  the  pope  who  succeeded 
Agatho.  "He  received,"  it  is  stated,  "the  holy  synod 
...  in  which  were  condemned  Cyrus,  Sergius,  Hon- 
orius, Pyrrhus,  etc."  Thus  three  successive  councils, 
whose  ecumenical  character  is  well  established  in  the 
estimate  of  the  Church,  anathematized  Honorius  I  as  a 
heretic  and  a  patron  of  heresy.  That  they  regarded  him 
as  having  sinned  against  the  faith  in  his  highest  official 
capacity  there  is  not  the  slightest  reason  to  doubt.  No 
sane  student  of  history  can  suppose  that  beyond  the 
damnable  fallibility — as  they  considered  it — which  the 
pope  put  on  exhibition,  they  recognized  an  ex  cathedra 
infallibility.  If  they  had  any  knowledge  of  the  latter, 
their  act  of  indiscriminate  condemnation  was  simply 
criminal,  as  recklessly  and  ruthlessly  assailing  the  very 
foundations  of  the  dogmatic  structure.1 

The  relation  of  Pope  Leo  II  to  the  sixth  ecumenical 
council  is  significant  in  a  double  respect.  On  the  one 
hand,  he  acknowledged  the  ecumenical  character  of  this 
assembly,  repeatedly  calling  it  in  his  letter  to  the  emperor 
"sancta  et  universalis  synodus."  On  the  other  hand,  he 
gave  assent  to  the  condemnatory  sentence  of  the  council 
in  these  terms :  "We  equally  anathematize  the  inventors 
of  the  new  heresy,  that  is,  Bishop  Theodore  of  Pharan, 
Cyrus  of  Alexandria,  Sergius,  Pyrrhus,  Paulus,  Petrus, 
waylayers  rather  than  overseers  of  the  Church  of  Con- 

'  For  the  facts  as  stated  see  Mansi,  vol.  XI;  Hefele,  §§  296-324. 


stantinople:  also  Honorius,  who  has  not  illuminated  this 
apostolic  Church  with  the  doctrine  of  apostolic  tradition, 
but  by  a  profane  betrayal  has  permitted  the  immaculate 
faith  to  be  defiled."  Equivalent  terms  were  used  by 
.Leo  II  in  communications  to  Spanish  dignitaries.  More- 
over, the  formula  of  condemnation  which  was  thus  sanc- 
tioned by  the  pope  contemporary  with  the  sixth  ecumen- 
ical council,  was  subscribed  by  a  long  line  of  popes.  "In 
the  'Liber  Diurnus,'  "  says  Hefele,  "that  is,  the  Book  of 
Formularies  of  the  Roman  curia  (from  the  fifth  to  the 
eleventh  century),  is  found  the  old  formula  for  the  pon- 
tifical oath,  prescribed  without  doubt  by  Gregory  II  (at 
the  beginning  of  the  eighth  century),  according  to  which 
every  new  pope  at  his  entrance  upon  his  office  is  bound 
to  give  oath  that  'he  acknowledges  the  sixth  ecumenical 
council,  which  laid  an  eternal  anathema  upon  the  authors 
of  the  new  heresy,  Sergius,  Pyrrhus,  etc.,  together  with 
Honorius,  because  he  gave  encouragement  to  the  de- 
praved assertions  of  heretics — quia  pravis  haereticorum 
assertionibus  fomentum  impendit.'  "J  What  more  could 
be  asked  in  the  way  of  papal  confirmation  ?  Doubtless  it 
is  possible  for  the  one  who  wishes  to  take  refuge  in 
technicality  to  allege  that  in  the  papal  form  of  the  anathe- 
ma against  Honorius  he  is  described  rather  as  a  patron  of 
heresy  than  as  a  heretic.  But  in  moral  effect  the  papal 
anathema  undoubtedly  went  to  reinforce  the  conciliar 
verdict  which  pronounced  Honorius  both  a  heretic  and  a 
patron  of  heresy.  The  entire  age  during  which  it  was 
kept  in  view  was  given  a  very  intelligible  lesson  on  the 
fallibility  of  the  Roman  pontiff.  To  suppose  the  content 
of  the  Vatican  decree  to  have  had  any  place  in  the  con- 

1  Hefele,  Conciliengeschichte,  second  edit.,  §  324. 


193  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

sciousness  of  that  age  is  simply  to  sacrifice  history  to 
the  extravagant  demands  of  dogma.  In  any  case  the 
verdict  of  the  sixth,  seventh,  and  eighth  ecumenical  coun- 
cils is  quite  as  authoritative  as  that  of  the  Vatican  Coun- 
cil, exposed  to  objection  as  was  the  latter  verdict  in 
respect  of  moral  unanimity  and  the  means  by  which  its 
possibility  was  secured. 

The  significance  of  the  conciliar  and  papal  censure  is 
not  largely  dependent  upon  the  deserts  of  its  subject.  Its 
significance  lies  in  the  testimony  which  it  bears  to  the  fact 
that  the  Vatican  theory  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Roman 
pontiff  was  foreign  to  the  conviction  of  the  universal 
Church,  and  that,  accordingly,  it  could  only  come  in  as 
a  stupendous  variation  from  original  Christianity,  and 
in  defiance  of  rightful  traditionary  authority.  This  much 
follows  whatever  may  have  been  the  real  fault  of  Hon- 
orius.  For  our  part,  we  are  not  reluctant  to  believe  that 
he  was  quite  as  good  a  Christian  as  was  the  average  man 
among  those  who,  whether  in  the  council  or  in  the  line 
of  Roman  pontiffs,  permitted  their  unseemly  dogmatism 
to  overflow  in  anathemas  against  the  dead.  The  man 
who  made  himself  a  mouthpiece  of  that  sort  of  cursing 
presented  as  poor  a  certificate  of  his  infallibility  as  was 
ever  furnished  by  the  condemned  pope.  Nevertheless,  it 
is  in  order  to  observe  that  even  modern  Roman  Catholic 
scholarship,  in  individual  instances,  has  been  ready  to 
admit  that  Honorius  I  is  amenable  to  the  charge  of  hav- 
ing given  an  ex  cathedra  sanction  to  heresy.  Dollinger, 
in  1863,  while  yet  he  held  a  position  of  high  honor  and 
distinction  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  declared  that 
the  anathematized  pontiff  could  be  excused  from  the 
charge  in  question  only  on  the  basis  of  an  interpretation 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  193 

of  the  phrase  ex  cathedra  which  seems  not  to  be  required 
by  the  Vatican  decree.1  Hefele,  wlriting  before  the 
Vatican  legislation,  remarked:  "Honorius  rejected  the 
technical  orthodox  term  of  two  energies,  and  declared 
the  specific  heretical  term,  one  will,  to  be  correct,  and 
prescribed  this  twofold  error  as  an  article  of  faith  to  the 
Church  of  Constantinople."2  As  this  language  implies, 
Hefele  judged  that  the  pope  had  expressed  his  doctrinal 
views  in  ex  cathedra  form.  Writing  after  the  Vatican 
Council,  and  after  his  own  submission  to  its  legislation, 
the  learned  historian,  though  careful  to  excuse  Honorius 
from  heterodox  intent,  did  not  conceal  his  sense  of  the 
unfortunate  character  of  some  of  his  expressions,  and  felt 
obliged  still  to  affirm  that  the  writings  containing  them 
were  of  the  ex  cathedra  order.  Speaking  of  Pennachi 
as  a  prominent  supporter  of  the  affirmative,  he  said :  "I, 
for  my  part,  confess  my  agreement  in  this  connection 
with  Pennachi,  since  Honorius  designed  to  give  to  the 
Church  of  Constantinople  immediately,  and  to  the  whole 
Church  implicitly,  a  prescription  respecting  doctrine  and 
faith ;  and  in  his  second  letter  employed  the  very  expres- 
sion, 'Ceterum,  quantum  ad  dogma  ecclesiasticum  per- 
tinet  .  .  .  non  unam  vel  duas  operationes  in  mediatore 
Dei  et  hominum  definire  debemus.'  "3  It  looks,  in  truth, 
as  though  Honorius  exhibited  very  poor  fidelity  to  the 
Christological  standard  set  up  at  Chalcedon.  But,  as 
was  observed  above,  the  significance  of  his  case  is  by  no 
means  dependent  upon  a  precise  determination  of  the 
extent  of  his  dogmatic  trespass. 

The  Council  of  Constance,  which  met  near  the  close  of 


1  Die  Papst-Fabeln  des  Mittelalters,  pp.  131-151. 

a  Causa  Honorii  Papae.  *  Conciliengeschichte,  second  edit.,  §  398. 


104  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

the  great  papal  schism,  and  wrought  successfully  for  the 
displacement  of  the  contesting  pontiffs,  clearly  asserted 
in  its  fourth  and  fifth  sessions  the  superiority  of  an  ecu- 
menical council  to  the  pope  both  in  respect  of  adminis- 
trative and  doctrinal  authority.  Its  decrees  may  be  char- 
acterized as  the  precise  opposites  of  those  passed  by  the 
Vatican  Council  on  the  absolute  supremacy  and  inde- 
pendent infallibility  of  the  Roman  pontiff.  As  formu- 
lated at  the  fifth  session  the  declaration  of  the  council 
was  in  this  form :  "The  Council  of  Constance  lawfully 
assembled  in  the  name  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  forming 
an  ecumenical  council  representing  the  Catholic  Church, 
has  its  power  immediately  from  Jesus  Christ,  to  which 
every  person  of  whatever  rank  and  dignity,  the  papal 
•itself  included,  is  bound  to  yield  obedience  in  those  things 
which  concern  the  faith,  the  extirpation  of  the  aforesaid 
schism,  and  the  general  reformation  of  the  Church  in  its 
head  and  members.  It  likewise  declares  that  if  any,  of 
whatever  condition,  rank,  or  dignity,  the  papal  itself  in- 
cluded, shall  contumaciously  refuse  obedience  to  the  com- 
mands, statutes,  ordinances,  or  precepts  of  this  or  any 
other  ecumenical  council  legitimately  assembled,  in  rela- 
tion to  the  aforesaid  matters  acted  upon  or  to  be  acted 
upon,  unless  he  shall  repent,  shall  be  subjected  to  condign 
penance  and  be  duly  punished."1  A  more  unequivocal 
assertion  that  the  power  of  the  pope  is  in  perpetuity 
subordinate  to  that  of  an  ecumenical  council  could  not 
well  be  imagined.  Nor  did  this  assertion  lack  for  con- 
firmation in  the  further  developments  of  that  period. 
Martin  V,  who  was  elected  in  accordance  with  a  special 
plan  sanctioned  by  the  council,  gave  at  least  implicitly  a 

i  Mansi,  XXVII.  590. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  195 

double  approval  to  its  legislation.  On  the  one  hand,  as 
appears  in  the  bull  Inter  cunctas,  he  required  of  suspected 
parties  an  acknowledgment  of  the  ecumenical  character 
of  the  Council  of  Constance.  On  the  other  hand,  he  de- 
clared his  assent  to  whatever  in  matters  of  faith  the  coun- 
cil had  determined  conciliariter,  or  in  regular  session.1 
At  the  second  session  of  the  Council  of  Basle  the  Con- 
stance decree  was  solemnly  approved.  This  means  that 
the  decree  received  an  ecumenical  sanction.  For,  as 
Maret  remarks,2  the  Council  of  Basle,  as  respects  its  first 
sixteen  sessions,  met  all  the  requirements  of  an  ecumenical 
assembly,  since  it  was  called  by  a  pope,  was  presided  over 
by  papal  legates,  was  sufficiently  representative  of  the 
Church  universal,  and  received  for  its  acts  the  papal 
approbation.  It  is  true  that  during  a  section  of  this  period 
Pope  Eugenius  IV  engaged  in  a  factious  opposition.  But 
he  received  so  little  countenance  in  this  course  that  he 
deemed  it  best  to  come  to  terms  with  the  assembled 
fathers.  Accordingly,  in  the  bull  Dudum  sacrum  he  de- 
clared the  canceling  of  all  censures  against  the  council 
and  his  adherence  to  that  body.  Moreover,  in  assuming 
later  (1437)  to  transfer  the  Basle  assembly  to  Ferrara 
he  as  much  as  confessed  its  legitimacy.  His  opposition, 
therefore,  after  that  point,  had  no  virtue  to  cancel  his 
previous  recognition ;  and  even  to  this  opposition  an  offset 
was  provided  in  the  bull  Tanto  nos,  by  which  Pope 
Nicholas  V  undertook  to  annul  all  the  censures  of 
Eugenius  IV  against  the  Council  of  Basle.3 

1  Mansi  gives  the  text  as  follows :  Quibus  sic  factis  sanctissimus  dominus 
noster  dixit  respondendo  ad  praedicta,  quod  omnia  et  singula  determinata, 
conclusa  et  decreta  in  materiis  fidei  per  praesens  concilium  conciliariter, 
tenere  et  inviolabiliter  observare  volebat,  et  nunquam  contravenire  quoque 
modo.  Ipsaque  sic  conciliariter  facta  approbat  et  ratificat,  et  non  aliter, 
nee  alio  modo  (XXVII.  1199).  *  Du  Concile  General,  I.  461. 

•  Dollinger,  Der  Papst  und  das  Concil,  pp.  360,  361., 


196  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

The  offsetting  considerations  which  have  been  urged 
against  these  formidable  facts  cannot  avail  to  annul  their 
force.  For  instance,  the  allegation  that  the  Council  of 
Constance  was  not  ecumenical  when  the  fourth  and  fifth 
sessions  were  held,  since  the  following  of  the  schismatic 
popes,  Gregory  XII  and  Benedict  XIII,  had  not  yet  been 
united  with  it,  carries  little  weight.  This  following  had 
been  reduced  to  a  paltry  remnant,  and  the  council  at  that 
stage  was  quite  as  representative  of  the  Church  as  were, 
in  their  time,  a  number  of  the  assemblies  which  have  been 
ranked  as  ecumenical.  Moreover,  the  bull  of  Martin  V 
which  made  assent  to  the  ecumenical  character  of  the 
council  obligatory  had  particular  reference  to  its  cen- 
sures against  the  Wycliffite  and  Hussite  teachings,  and 
these  censures  were  passed  before  the  "obediences"  of 
Gregory  XII  and  Benedict  XIII  had  been  formally  recon- 
ciled. A  second  allegation,  namely,  that  the  action  of  the 
Constance  assembly  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  sessions  was 
subject  at  the  time  to  some  question  as  to  its  regularity, 
seems  to  have  very  slight  foundation.  Historical  evi- 
dence is  wanting  that  the  given  action  was  seriously 
challenged.  That  it  was  assailed  with  a  criticism  at  all 
comparable  in  measure  with  that  which  was  directed 
against  the  legitimacy  of  the  order  of  proceedings  in  the 
Vatican  assembly,  there  is  no  good  reason  to  believe.  A 
third  allegation,  or  that  based  on  the  assumption  that  the 
word  conciliariter,  as  used  by  Martin  V  in  his  confirma- 
tory sentence,  can  fairly  be  made  to  shut  out  the  decrees 
of  the  fourth  and  fifth  sessions  from  the  range  of  con- 
firmation, is  at  least  of  very  doubtful  validity.  Dollinger 
gives  the  probable  significance  of  the  limitation  contained 
in  that  term  when  he  says  of  Martin  V:  "He  wished 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  197 

thereby  to  withhold  his  approval  from  two  decisions 
which  had  been  passed  over  annates  and  over  a  book  of 
the  Dominican  Falkenberg,  which  had  not  been  enacted 
by  the  council  in  full  session,  but  in  the  congregations 
of  the  nations  singly,"1  conciliariter  being  thus  contrasted 
with  nationaliter.  A  remaining  allegation,  namely,  that 
Martin  V,  before  the  close  of  the  council,  issued  a  con- 
stitution in  reprobation  of  the  idea  of  appealing  from 
the  pope  to  any  higher  tribunal,  deserves  a  somewhat 
larger  consideration.  That  a  manifesto  of  that  kind  was 
projected  by  the  pope  is  evidenced  by  the  adverse  com- 
ments of  Gerson.  But  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  the  probable 
occasion  of  the  purpose  to  issue  the  manifesto  was  the 
known  intention  of  the  Hussites  to  appeal  to  a  future 
council  from  the  rigorous  judgment  pronounced  against 
them  by  the  pope.  Lenfant  specifies  this  occasion,2  and 
it  is  very  distinctly  suggested  by  the  conditions.  Viewed 
as  being  thus  motived,  the  constitution,  though  not  agree- 
able to  the  standpoint  of  the  council,  would  not  be  indic- 
ative of  such  forwardness  and  set  purpose  in  Martin  V 
to  antagonize  the  Constance  legislation  that  he  would  care 
to  initiate  the  project  in  an  academic  fashion.  Further- 
more, evidence  is  wanting  that  the  bull  was  published, 
and  not  simply  meditated  or  discussed.  "The  constitu- 
tion," says  Friedrich,  "does  not  exist;  Pius  II  does  not 
mention  it ;  and  also  Gerson,  who  alone  makes  note  of  it, 
had  not  himself  seen  it,  but  speaks  from  hearsay,  and 
only  respecting  a  sketch  (minuta)  .  .  .  Hinschius  cor- 
rectly remarks  on  the  subject,  that  in  any  case  this  de- 
liverance was  not  suitably  published,  on  the  contrary  was 

1  Dpllinger  und  Friedrich,  Das  Papstthum,  pp.  159,  160,  463. 
3  Histoire  du  Concile  de  Constance,  vi.  44. 


198  THE   ROMAN    TYPE 

» 

ignored,  and  Martin  V  himself  in  connection  with  a  like 
occasion  at  the  forty-fifth  session  did  not  recur  to  it."1 
Possibly  Martin  V  may  have  bethought  himself  that, 
inasmuch  as  he  was  the  creature  of  the  council,  he  could 
not  afford  to  assail  its  authority.  At  any  rate,  there  was 
excellent  occasion  for  him  to  indulge  in  a  reflection  of 
that  kind.  It  was  the  action  of  the  council,  especially  in 
deposing  John  XXIII,  which  provided  the  vacancy  in 
the  papal  office.  Furthermore,  the  electoral  college,  to 
which  he  owed  his  choice  to  the  papal  office,  was  con- 
stituted in  a  special  way  by  the  act  of  the  council.  To 
impugn,  then,  the  supreme  authority  of  the  council  would 
be  equivalent  to  impugning  his  own  title;  and  this  once 
done,  the  standing  of  his  successors  would  be  subject  to 
suspicion,  since  one  who  was  not  legitimately  a  pope 
would  vitiate  the  electoral  college  in  so  far  as  he  should 
make  appointments  to  the  office  of  cardinal.2 

Enough  has  been  said  to  illustrate  the  difficulty  which 
meets  the  apologist  for  papal  infallibility  in  dealing  with 
the  Council  of  Constance.  And  even  if  he  could  make  a 
respectable  show  of  surmounting  this  difficulty,  he  has 
not  half  accomplished  his  task,  since  there  remains  the 
legislation  of  the  Council  of  Basle,  having  the  same  tenor 
as  that  of  the  preceding  assembly,  and  claiming  also  the 
assent  of  the  pope.3  It  is  to  be  observed,  too,  that  quite 
as  serious  a  dilemma  is  made  for  the  pope  in  the  latter 
case  as  in  the  former.  If  the  Council  of  Basle  violated 
truth  and  right  in  reproducing  the  decree  of  Constance 
in  favor  of  the  ecumenical  council,  then  Eugenius  IV 
denied  his  infallibility  in  declaring  his  unqualified  ad- 

1  Dollinger  und  Friedrich,  Das  Papstthum,  p.  465. 

2  Compare   Sabatier,    Religions  of   Authority  and   the   Religion   of  the 
Spirit,  p.  133.  »  Mansi,  XXIX.  21,  78. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  199 

herence  to  that  assembly.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
action  taken  at  Basle  was  within  the  limits  of  truth  and 
right,  then  the  Vatican  definitions  of  papal  supremacy 
and  infallibility  are  glaringly  false. 

The  attempt  to  save  the  cause  of  papal  infallibility  by 
opposing  the  Council  of  Florence  and  the  Fifth  Lateran 
to  the  assemblies  convened  at  Constance  and  Basle  must 
obviously  be  fruitless.  In  point  of  a  legitimate  claim  to 
an  ecumenical  character  the  former  two,  composed  as 
they  were  almost  exclusively  of  bishops  drawn  from  the 
neighborhood  of  the  pope,  belong  at  the  very  end  of  the 
list.  And  even  if  their  ecumenical  character  were  unim- 
peachable, the  result  would  only  be  that  conciliar  author- 
ity, as  being  involved  in  most  palpable  contradictions, 
would  be  discredited  together  with  papal  authority.  It 
remains  to  be  noticed  also  that  the  declarations  of  these 
two  councils,  while  they  might  be  regarded  as  implicitly 
containing  the  dogma  of  papal  infallibility,  gave  to  it 
no  explicit  mention. 

Putting  the  record  of  the  sixth  ecumenical  council  with 
that  of  the  fourteenth  century  assemblies  at  Constance 
and  Basle,  and  combining  with  this  evidence  the  papal 
supplement  to  the  respective  records,  we  are  compelled 
to  conclude  that  the  Roman  hierarchy  is  in  desperate  need 
of  apologetic  skill.  Rather  we  are  compelled  to  conclude 
that  no  amount  of  apologetic  skill  can  vanquish  the 
objections  which  are  presented,  in  this  part  of  the  his- 
torical domain,  to  the  dogma  of  papal  infallibility. 

Taken  in  its  whole  range,  the  record  of  the  opinions 
and  conduct  of  the  popes  is  quite  as  decisive  in  its  bearing 
on  our  theme  as  is  the  record  of  the  councils.  The  sec- 


200  THE   ROMAN    TYPE 

tion  of  the  former  which  presents  instances  in  which  the 
popes  have  contradicted  one  another  or  the  ultimate 
standards  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  on  doctrinal 
points,  though  not  perhaps  the  most  conclusive  part,  fur- 
nishes very  weighty  objections  to  the  infallibility  dogma. 
Not  a  few  of  these  instances,  it  may  be  granted,  concern 
papal  deliverances  whose  ex  cathedra  character  may  be 
questioned.  But  this  fact  does  not  destroy  the  pertinency 
of  a  reference  to  them.  An  official  gift  which  fails  to 
act  when  there  is  occasion  for  action  advertises  itself, 
to  the  extent  of  the  failure,  as  a  pretense  rather  than  an 
actuality.  The  accumulated  instances  of  errancy  on  the 
part  of  the  popes  have  a  real  bearing  on  the  question 
of  their  official  outfit,  and  an  attempt  to  deny  their 
force  by  appealing  to  technicality  simply  shows  that 
the  apologist  has  gotten  off  the  track  of  reality,  and 
assimilated  divine  rule  to  a  kind  of  red-tape  regime.  We 
are  not,  then,  parading  irrelevant  matter  in  presenting 
the  following  list  of  items  from  the  records  of  the  popes 
in  relation  to  questions  of  doctrine. 

Liberius,  according  to  the  judgment  of  Athanasius 
and  other  representatives  of  the  post-Nicene  age.  denied 
the  orthodox  faith,  in  that  he  subscribed  to  a  semi-Arian 
creed.1  Vigilius  in  the  controversy  over  the  "Three 
Chapters"  alternated  in  a  marvelous  way  between  the 
role  of  approval  and  that  of  condemnation.2  Innocent  I 
and  Gelasius  I  made  the  reception  of  the  eucharistic  ele- 
ments so  indispensable,  even  for  young  children,  as  to 
deny  the  possible  salvation  of  those  dying  prior  to  their 


'Athanasius,  Hist.  Arian.  ad  Monachos,  §41;  Apol.  cont.  Arian.,  §89; 
Jerome,  Chron.,  Catalog.  Script.  Eccl. ;  Sozomen,  Hist.  Eccl.,  iy.  15. 

*  Hefele,  Conciliengeschichte,  §§258-276;  Dollinger  und  Friednch,  Das 
Papstthum,  pp.  7,  323. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  201 

reception1 — a  view  which  the  Council  of  Trent  thought 
fit  to  anathematize.2  The  latter  of  these  two  popes  em- 
ployed, furthermore,  language  which  unmistakably  ex- 
cludes the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation.  "Truly  the  sacra- 
ments," he  wrote,  "which  we  receive  of  the  body  and 
blood  of  Christ  are  a  divine  thing,  because  through  the 
same  we  are  made  partakers  of  the  divine  nature,  and, 
nevertheless,  the  substance  or  nature  of  bread  and  wine 
does  not  cease  to  be — tamen  esse  non  desinit  substantia  vel 
natura  panis  et  vini/'3  Gregory  II  gave  expression  to 
what  looks  marvelously  like  a  sanction  to  polygamy  in 
certain  special  cases.4  Nicholas  II,  along  with  a  council 
held  at  Rome  in  1059,  approved  a  formula  dictated  to 
Berengar,  which  supposes  the  body  of  Christ  to  be  subject 
to  real  mastication  in  the  mouth  of  the  communicant,5 
whereas  the  Tridentine  doctrine  that  the  body  of  Christ 
is  entire  under  every  separate  portion  of  bread  implies 
a  contrary  conclusion.  In  contradiction  to  the  maxim 
of  the  Church  that  ordination  is  not  invalidated  by  the 
bad  character  of  the  ordaining  bishop,  a  number  of  popes, 
notably  Gregory  VII  and  Urban  II  judged  that  ordina- 
tion is  vitiated  by  guilt  of  simony  in  the  ordainer.6  John 
XXII,  in  connection  with  the  question  of  the  demands  of 

1  Innocent  I,  Epist.  xxx  (ad  Concilium  Milevitanum) ;  Gelasius  I,  Epist. 
vii  (ad  Omnes  Episcopos  per  Picenum).  2  Sess.  xxi,  cap.  iv,  can.  4. 

3  De  Duabus  Natuns. 

4  Quod  proposuisti,    quod  si  mulier  infirmitate  correpta  non  valuerit 
debitum  viro  reddere,  quid  ejus  faciat  jugalis?     Bonum  esset  si  sic  perma- 
naret,  ut  abstinentiae  vacaret.     Sed  quia  hoc  magnorum  est,  ille  qui  se 
non  poterit  cpntinere,  nubat  rnagis;  non  tamen  subsidii  opem  subtrahat 
ab  ilia  quam  infirmitas  praepedit,  et  non  detestablis  culpa  excludit  (Migne, 
Patrologia,  Epistola  xiv,  ad  Bonifacium). 

5  Consentio  et  profiteer  panem  et  vinum,  quae  in  altari  ponuntur,  post 
consecrationem  non  solum  sacramentum  sed  etiam  verum  corpus  et  san- 
guinem  Domini  nostri  Jesu  Christi  esse,  et  sensualiter  non  solum  sacra- 
mento,   sed  in  veritate  manibus  sacerdotum  tractari,  franzi  et  fidelium 
dentibus  atteri  (Hefele,  Conciliengeschichte,  §  555). 

«  Hefele,  §§  539,  558,  585,  587,  601;  Bellinger,  Der  Papst  und  das  Concil, 
p.  56. 


202  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

the  gospel  ideal  of  poverty,  as  disputed  among  the  Fran- 
ciscans, took  ground  contrary  to  the  decisions  of  Nicholas 
III  and  Clement  V.1  The  same  pontiff  also  propounded 
the  theory  that  the  saints  do  not  attain  to  the  vision  of 
God  till  after  the  general  judgment,  and  sustained  it  with 
stubborn  resolution  until  the  strength  of  the  protest  which 
was  called  forth  advised  him  to  seek  safety  in  retreat.2 
Eugenius  IV,  in  a  decree  relative  to  the  Armenians,  de- 
fined as  a  constituent  of  the  sacrament  of  penance  a 
form  of  absolution  which  the  Greek  Church  never  used, 
and  which  the  Latin  Church  itself  did  not  employ  for 
eleven  centuries.3  Innocent  IV  admitted  that  a  pope  may 
err  in  matters  of  faith,  so  that  it  is  necessary  to  ask 
rather  what  the  Church  believes  than  what  he  believes4 ; 
and  Adrian  VI,  after  his  election  to  the  papal  office,  per- 
mitted a  book  written  by  himself  to  be  republished,  in 
which  he  not  only  declared  that  a  Roman  pontiff  can  hold 
and  teach  heresy,  but  also  affirmed  that  several  Roman 
pontiffs  had  actually  been  heretics.5  Urban  VIII  gave 
the  force  of  papal  approbation  to  the  sentence  of  the  In- 
quisition (1633),  wherein  the  Copernican  theory,  as 
taught  by  Galileo,  was  condemned  as  false  and  contrary 
to  the  Scriptures — doctrinam  falsam  et  contrariam  Sacris 
ac  Divinis  Scripturis.6  Alexandria  VII  supplemented 

>  Hefele,  §  704. 

2  Hefele,  §  704;  Raynaldus,  Annales  Eccl.,  annis  1331,  1334. 

J  Bullarium  Romanura,  anno  1439. 

4  Papa  etiam  potest  errare  in  fide,  et  ideo  non  debet  quis  dicere:  credo 
id,  quod  credit  papa,  sed  illud,  quod  credit  ecclesia,  et  sic  dicendo  non 
errabit.     (Cited  by  Dollinger,  Der  Papst  und  das  Concil,  p.  395.) 

5  Dico:  quod  si  per  ecclesiam   Romanam  intelligitur  caput  ejus,  puta 
pontifex,  certum  est  quod  possit  errare,  etiam  in  iis  quae  tangunt  fidem, 
haeresim    per   suam    determinationem    aut    decretalem    asserendo :  plures 
enim  fuere  pontifices  Romani  haeretici.     In  what  follows  John  XXII  is 
mentioned   as   an   example.      (Cited   by   Bossuet,    Defensio   Declarationis 
Conventus  Cleri  Gallicam,  Praevia  Dissertatio,  xxviii.) 

*  See  Henri  de  1'Epinois,   Les   Pieces  du  Proces  de  Galilee;  Karl  von 
Gebler,  Galileo  Galilei. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  203 

the  action  of  his  predecessor  by  specifically  confirming  the 
censures  contained  in  the  Index  of  1664,  in  which  was 
included  a  decree  issued  under  Paul  V  in  1616  against 
several  Copernican  treatises.1  That  subsequent  popes 
were  not  in  haste  to  interfere  with  this  peculiar  sort  of 
pontifical  service  to  scientific  truth  is  attested  by  the  fact 
that  the  condemned  Copernican  writings  were  not  re- 
leased from  the  Index  of  Prohibited  Books  until  1835. 

The  items  enumerated  above  are  not  helpful  to  faith  in  ) 
papal   infallibility.      But  the  most   formidable  evidence  \ 
which  may  legitimately  be  drawn  from  the  record  of  the  , 
popes  concerns  their  relation  to  the  moral  standard,  their  \ 
practical  as  well  as  their  theoretical  relation — in  other  / 
words,  their  character  and  conduct  as  well  as  their  judg-/ 
ments.     As  regards  the  latter,  it  will  suffice  to  take  note 
of  the  astonishing  specimen  afforded  by  the  bull  Unigen- 
itus,  a  product  of  the  fierce  hostility  of  the  Jesuits  against 
the  Jansenists.    This  was  issued  in  1713  by  Clement  XI 
in  condemnation  of  one  hundred  and  one  propositions 
from    the    "Moral    Reflections"    of    Quesnel,    and    was 
earnestly  commended  and  urged  upon  the  French  clergy 
and  people  by  several  succeeding  popes.     In  respect  of 
form  the  bull,  or  constitution,  lacked  no  requisite  of  an 
ex  cathedra  character,  since  it  laid  its  requirements  upon 
all  Christians,  and  denounced  punishment  against  all  who 
should,  in  relation  to  a  single  item,  go  contrary  to  its 
prescriptions.2     There  seems  also  to  be,  among  recent 

1  The  text  of  the  confirmatory  sentence  of  Alexander  VII  is  given  in  the 
author's  Church  History,  Modern  Church,  Part  I,  p.  389. 

J  Omnes  et  singulas  propositiones  praeinsertas,  tanquam  falsas,  cap- 
tiosas,  male  sonantes,  impias,  suspectas  de  haeresi,  ac  heresim  ipsam 
sapientes,  etc.,  hac  nostra  perpetuo  valitura  constitutione  declaramus, 
damnamus,  et  reprobamus,  mandantes  omnibus  utriusque  sexus  Christi 
fidelibus,  ne  de  dictis  propositionibus  sentire,  docere,  ac  praedicare  aliter 
praesumant,  quam  in  hac  eadem  nostra  constitutione  contmetur. 


204  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

exponents  of  Roman  orthodoxy,  no  doubt  about  its  ex 
cathedra  quality.  Thus  Scheeben,  speaking  of  the  differ- 
ent species  of  ex  cathedra  decisions,  says:  "The  most 
solemn  and  definitely  expressed  form  is  given  in  the  so- 
called  dogmatic  constitutions  or  bulls,  which  set  forth  and 
promulgate  judgments  in  the  form  of  universal  church 
laws,  and  under  sanction  of  stringent  punishments,  exam- 
ples of  which  are  given  in  the  constitution  Unigenitus 
and  Auctorem  fidei  against  the  Jansenists,  and  in  the 
Ineffabilis  Deus  on  the  immaculate  conception."1  Now, 
in  this  dogmatic  and  ex  cathedra  constitution  the  pope 
has  smitten  with  his  solemn  reprobation  the  following 
proposition:  "The  fear  of  an  unjust  excommunication 
ought  never  to  hinder  us  from  doing  our  duty.  We  are 
not  severed  from  the  Church,  even  when  we  appear  to  be 
cast  out  of  it  by  the  wickedness  of  men,  so  long  as  we 
are  united  to  God,  to  Jesus  Christ,  and  likewise  to  the 
Church  by  means  of  charity."2  We  submit  that  the  con- 
demnation of  this  proposition  is  nothing  less  than  an  as- 
sault against  a  perfectly  indubitable  principle  of  a  sane 
and  Christian  morality.  The  proposition  is  not  false, 
heretical,  ill-sounding,  or  blameworthy  in  any  respect. 
The  possibility  which  it  contemplates  is  one  which 
scholars  of  the  very  best  reputation  for  orthodoxy  and 
wisdom  have  been  entirely  free  to  discuss.  The  senti- 
ment to  which  it  gives  expression  would  not  be  out  of 
place  in  the  very  heart  of  the  gospel.  Indeed,  Christ  may 
be  regarded  as  having  substantially  anticipated  it  in  the 

1  Handbuch   der   Katholischen   Dogmatik,    I.    228,    §  32.      Compare   J. 
Hergenrother,   Catholic   Church  and  Christian  State,   pp.   41,   42;  Billot, 
Tractatus  de  Ecclesia  Christi,  III.  167. 

2  Proposition  91.     Excommunicationis  injustae  metus  numquam  debet 
nos  impedire  ab  implendo  debito  nostro:  nunquam  eximus  ab  ecclesia, 
etiam  quando  hominum  nequitia  videmur  ab  ea  expulsi,   quando   Deo, 
Jesu  Christo,  atque  ipsi  ecclesiae  per  charitate  affix!  sumus. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  205 

estimate  which  he  placed  upon  the  experience  of  his  fol- 
lowers in  being  unrighteously  cast  out  of  the  synagogue.1 
Who  can  think  of  infallibility  in  relation  to  the  con- 
demnation of  such  a  proposition  ?  It  is  not  even  a  decent 
form  of  fallibility  that  comes  to  view  in  this  connection, 
but  a  scandalous  misdirection  of  official  judgment,  an 
expenditure  of  controversial  venom  through  a  damna- 
tory sentence  which  might  better  have  come  from  the 
court  of  antichrist  than  from  the  seat  of  Christ's  vicar. 
And  there  are  other  items  in  this  constitution  which  are 
suited  in  almost  equal  degree  to  cast  contempt  upon  the 
claim  to  infallibility.  Surely  it  requires  a  peculiar  men- 
tal subjection  not  to  give  way  to  an  impulse  of  scorn 
when  one  thinks  of  the  formal  reprobation  of  a  propo- 
sition like  this:  "The  Lord's  day  ought  to  be  sancti- 
fied on  the  part  of  Christians  by  pious  reading,  and 
above  all  by  the .  perusal  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  It 
is  harmful  to  wish  to  keep  back  a  Christian  from  this 
reading."2  We  are  loath  to  suppose  that  the  fathers 
of  the  Third  Plenary  Council  of  Baltimore  wished  to 
do  despite  to  the  solemn  judgment  of  an  infallible  mas- 
ter; but  anyone  can  see  that  they  ran  squarely  in  the 
face  of  that  judgment  when,  in  their  pastoral  letter,  they 
set  forth  such  a  complete  equivalent  for  the  condemned 
proposition  as  is  contained  in  the  following  sentence: 
"It  can  hardly  be  necessary  for  us  to  remind  you,  beloved 
brethren,  that  the  most  highly  valued  treasure  of  every 
family  library,  and  the  most  frequently  and  lovingly  made 
use  of,  should  be  the  Holy  Scriptures."3  Who  will  say 

1  John  ix.  35 ;  xvi.  a. 

1  Dies  Dommicus  a  Christianis  debet  sanctificari  lectionibus  pietatis, 
et  supra  omnia  Sanctarum  Scriptuarum.  Damnosum  est  velle  Christianum 
ab  hac  lectione  retrahere.  (Proposition  82.) 

*  Acta  et  Decreta,  p.  Ixxxix. 


206  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

that  words  like  these  deserve  to  be  blotted  ?  But  if  they 
are  to  abide  over  against  the  Unigenitus  constitution, 
they  must  serve  as  a  window  to  let  in  the  light  on  the 
wretched  errancy  of  that  ex  cathedra  document.  In 
short,  the  Unigenitus  constitution,  condemning  as  it  does 
some  of  the  plainest  maxims  of  morality  and  common 
sense,  is  enough  by  itself  to  turn  the  dogma  of  papal  in- 
fallibility into  a  subject  of  derision. 

Were  it  not  that  there  is  a  chance  to  question  its  ex 
cathedra  character,  a  deliverance  of  Urban  II  might  well 
take  a  rank  only  secondary  to  that  of  the  Unigenitus  con- 
stitution as  a  disproof  of  papal  infallibility  in  matters  of 
moral  theory.  In  writing  to  a  bishop  respecting  certain 
slayers  of  excommunicated  persons,  he  expressed  the 
judgment  that  those  who  out  of  zeal  for  the  Church  may 
chance  to  kill  the  excommunicate  are  not  to  be  accounted 
\  homicides,  and  only  need  to  do  penance  for  the  sake  of 
\  covering  any  reprehensible  element  which,  in  their  human 
frailty,  they  may  have  mixed  with  their  deed.1 

In  taking  account  of  the  character  of  the  popes  we  are 
quite  well  aware  that  we  must  incur  a  charge  of  ir- 
relevancy. The  statement  is  frequently  upon  the  lips  of 
the  Roman  apologist  that  considerations  of  that  order 
are  impertinent.  "Infallibility,"  it  is  said,  "has  nothing 
to  do  with  prudence  in  conduct.  Neither  has  it  anything 
to  do  with  the  moral  character  of  the  pope."2  So  run 
the  defensive  remarks  of  the  apologist;  but  instead  of 
protecting  the  dogma  of  papal  infallibility  they  afford 

1  Epist.  cxxii  (Migne).  Non  enim  eos  hpmicidas  arbitramur,  quod 
adversus  excommunicates  zelo  catholicae  matris  ardentes,  eorum  quoslibet 
trucidasse  contigerit. 

1  Hunter,  Outlines  of  Dogmatic  Theology,  I.  445.  Compare  Procter,  The 
Catholic  Creed,  1901,  p.  144;  Russo,  The  True  Religion  and  its  Dogmas, 
pp.  116,  117. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  207 

against  it  a  very  serious  ground  of  impeachment.  They 
show  the  pernicious  tendency  of  that  dogma  to  work 
toward  the  substitution  of  a  scheme  of  unethical  magic 
for  the  ethical  standpoint  of  the  New  Testament.  A 
glance  into  the  Gospels  and  Epistles  cannot  fail  to  dis- 
close the  great  lesson  that  clarity  of  vision,  insight  into 
the  verities  of  the  divine  kingdom,  depends  upon  holy 
character  and  righteous  living.  Those  who  do  the  will 
of  the  heavenly  Father  are  to  know  of  the  doctrine,  and 
parties  making  claims  to  high  prerogatives  are  to  be 
judged  by  their  fruits.  In  answer,  therefore,  to  the 
charge  of  irrelevancy,  we  only  need  to  say  that  if  we  are 
to  proceed  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  New  Testament, 
and  not  from  that  of  pagan  magic,  papal  character 
and  conduct  are  of  vital  moment  in  a  consideration  of 
the  dogma  of  papal  infallibility.  Criticism  on  this 
basis  has  the  very  best  right;  and  it  is  somewhat  a  mat- 
ter for  surprise  that  the  opponents  of  the  dogma  at  the 
time  of  the  Vatican  Council  did  not  resort  to  it  more 
largely.  Maret  took  note  of  the  intrinsic  connection  be- 
tween character  and  doctrinal  inerrancy,1  and  in  the  dis- 
cussions of  the  council  one  at  least  of  the  bishops  seems 
to  have  assumed  the  propriety  of  affirming  such  connec- 
tion2; but  for  the  most  part  the  very  serious  import  of 
this  consideration  was  ignored. 

It  may  be  thought,  possibly,  that  the  bad  character  of 
a  minority  of  the  popes  need  not  be  prejudicial  to  the 
high  claims  of  the  rest.  But  in  case  of  a  gift  which  per- 
tains to  the  office,  and  not  to  the  person,  which  must 
therefore  be  as  truly  the  property  of  one  incumbent  as  of 


»  Du  Concile  G£n6ral,  II.  ioofi. 

1  Granderath,  Geschichte  des  vatikanischen  Konzils.  III.  412. 


208  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

another,  every  instance  of  a  character  incompatible  with 
the  supposed  gift  testifies  to  the  falsity  of  the  notion  that 
the  gift  is  really  attached  to  the  office,  or  to  the  person 
merely  in  virtue  of  his  possessing  the  office.  Nor  is  the 
difficulty  which  confronts  the  infallibilist  on  this  side  to 
be  evaded  by  the  contention  that  bad  popes  have  not  at- 
tempted to  put  forth  doctrinal  decisions.  Even  if  it  should 
be  granted  that  they  have  not  done  so,  there  is  no  guaran- 
tee against  their  doing  that  very  thing,  unless  the  opera- 
tion of  a  drastic  form  of  determinism  is  an  established 
fact.  But  it  is  not  to  be  granted  that  we  have  anything 
like  an  adequate  assurance  that  the  badness  of  popes  has 
not  been  a  factor  in  the  doctrinal  determinations  which 
have  been  made  through  the  centuries.  Badness  does  not 
consist  merely  in  harboring  those  gross  kinds  of  evil 
which  advertise  a  man  as  a  sensualist  and  a  criminal. 
Pride  of  office,  thirst  for  dogmatic  distinction,  appetite 
for  rule  may  work  mightily  in  men  who  in  other  respects 
stand  before  their  fellows  clothed  in  the  garments  of 
eminent  respectability.  Depravity  in  other  forms  has  in- 
vaded the  papal  office.  Who  will  inform  us  by  authority 
that  depravity  in  the  specified  forms  has  not  invaded  that 
office?  To  suppose  that  it  has  not  is  to  suppose  the  in- 
credible. It  may  be  said,  in  truth,  that  the  notion  of  an 
official  infallibility  is  essentially  self-canceling.  Where 
the  mere  entrance  upon  a  given  station  means  approx- 
imate deification  the  sense  of  official  importance  tends  to 
overgrowth,  and  can  with  difficulty  be  kept,  even  in  the 
most  elect  subjects,  from  eventuating  in  tempers  which 
are  incompatible  with  the  best  inward  illumination.  The 
object  of  a  perpetual  offering  of  incense,  taught  to  regard 
his  own  will  as  superior  to  every  other  standard  upon 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  209 

earth,  officially  immune  from  all  contradiction,  the  re- 
putedly infallible  pontiff  is  no  partaker  of  common  flesh 
and  blood  if  he  is  to  resist  fully  and  uniformly  the  tempta- 
tion to  self-worship.  Dollinger  spoke  none  too  strongly 
when  he  said :  "All  absolute  power  corrupts  the  man  into 
whose  possession  it  passes.  To  this  all  history  bears  testi- 
mony. Is  this  power  in  the  spiritual  order  and  does  it 
rule  the  consciences  of  men,  then  the  danger  of  self- 
exaltation  is  so  much  the  greater,  since  the  possession  of 
such  power  exercises  a  specially  misleading  stimulus  and 
facilitates  self-deception,  in  that  the  passionate  thirst  for 
personal  rule  is  only  too  easily  palliated  as  care  for  the 
salvation  of  others.  Should  now  the  man,  to  whom  such 
a  boundless  power  has  fallen,  cherish  the  opinion  that  he 
is  infallible  and  an  organ  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  should  he 
be  aware  that  an  expression  from  him  in  moral  and  reli- 
gious things  will  be  received  with  universal  and  even  in- 
terior submission,  the  well-nigh  inevitable  result,  so  far 
as  can  be  seen,  will  be  that  against  such  an  intoxicating 
consciousness  sobriety  of  spirit  will  never  be  preserved."1 
It  may  be  added  that  the  ever-recurring  task  of  defending 
and  asserting  his  extraordinary  authority,  which  is  de- 
volved upon  the  pontiff  in  the  role  of  absolute  and  in- 
fallible ecclesiastical  monarch,  must  tend  to  foster  an 
abnormal  consciousness  of  his  importance,  and  that  the 
incentive  which  comes  from  this  source  is  likely  to  be 
strengthened  by  a  line  of  precedents,  as  well  as  by  the 
animus  of  a  crowd  of  subordinates  who  find  in  pontifical 
greatness  the  surest  basis  for  their  own  eminence. 

With  this  justification  of  the  introduction  of  the  theme, 
we  may  proceed  to  give  some  illustration  of  the  spirit  of 

1  Dollinger  und  Friedrich,  Das  Papstthum,  p.  235. 


210  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

those  who  have  sat  in  the  seat  of  a  professedly  inerrant 
judgment  in  matters  of  faith  and  morals.  It  will  not 
be  necessary  to  make  a  long  catalogue  of  instances. 
Neither  is  there  any  occasion  to  insinuate  that  the  popes 
as  a  body  will  not  compare  fairly  well  with  any  extended 
line  of  earthly  magnates.  As  was  indicated  above,  since 
the  Vatican  dogma  makes  infallibility  an  attachment  of 
the  papal  office,  that  dogma  is  descredited  by  the  presence 
in  the  said  office  of  men  whose  character  and  conduct 
have  been  contradictory  to  the  conditions  of  special  reli- 
gious and  ethical  enlightenment  asserted  in  the  New 
Testament.  Now,  history  demonstrates  beyond  all  pos- 
sibility of  refutation  that  various  representatives  of  the 
papacy  have  fallen  below  an  average  standard  of  right- 
eous conduct,  and  that  at  least  a  few  in  the  list  have  given 
adequate  ground  to  be  rated  as  specimens  of  downright 
depravity.  Even  as  early  as  the  fourth  century  some 
of  the  successors  of  Peter  seem  to  have  yielded  to  the 
temptations  of  worldly  display  and  luxury.  The  fair- 
minded  heathen  historian  Ammianus  Marcellinus  refers 
to  their  costly  equipage  and  to  their  feasts  surpassing 
kings'  tables.1  He  also  informs  us  that  the  episcopal 
chair  was  considered  worth  contending  for  even  at  the 
expense  of  blood,  that  indeed  the  sacrifice  of  one  hundred 
and  thirty-seven  lives  in  the  storming  of  a  church  was 
one  incident  of  the  struggle  through  which  Damasus  was 
made  Roman  bishop.2  It  is  not  determined,  to  be  sure, 
how  great  was  the  responsibility  of  the  victorious  prelate 
for  this  abhorrent  scene ;  but  it  makes  an  immense  strain 
on  charity  to  suppose  that  the  leader  in  the  shameful  con- 
test was  in  no  wise  accountable  for  the  spirit  of  bloody 

1  Rerum  Gestarum,  lib.  xxvii.  *  Ibid. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  an 

violence  in  his  followers.  Equally  dishonorable  were  the 
circumstances  under  which  Vigilius  gained  the  episcopal 
chair  at  Rome.  He  came  to  the  high  position,  so  Hefele 
judges,  as  the  conscious  instrument  of  the  intriguing  em- 
press, and  at  the  expense  of  an  outrageous  injustice 
against  his  predecessor,  who  was  made  the  victim  of  false 
accusations  and  driven  out  to  provide  room  for  this  char- 
acterless tool.1  Beginning  with  Sergius  III  in  904,  the 
papacy  for  upwards  of  half  a  century  was  the  spoil  of  un- 
principled Italian  nobles,  and  especially  of  the  notorious 
female  trio,  Theodora  and  her  two  daughters  Marozia 
and  Theodora.  Some  of  the  half  dozen  popes  who  be- 
longed to  this  period,  significantly  styled  the  period  of  the 
"pornocracy,"  were  no  better  than  the  persons  to  whose 
shameless  patronage  they  owed  their  position.  This  was 
true  in  particular  of  John  XII.2  In  the  first  half  of  the 
following  century  another  period  of  deep  disgrace  ensued, 
and  among  the  popes  of  this  era  Benedict  IX  may  be  said 
to  have  rivaled  the  evil  reputation  of  John  XII.3  As  a 
class  the  Avignon  popes  (1309-1376),  if  not  such  abject 
specimens  of  spiritual  sovereignty  as  some  of  their  prede- 
cessors in  the  tenth  and  the  eleventh  century,  were  yet 
remote  enough  from  all  just  claims  to  religious  reverence. 
By  the  admission  of  the  Roman  Catholic  historian  Pastor 
their  conduct  was  in  general  conspicuous  for  its  worldly 
tone,  and  at  the  worst  ran  into  a  demoralizing  and  dis- 
graceful extreme  of  luxury.4  In  other  respects  also  some 
of  them  exhibited  a  temper  marvelously  contrasted  with 

1  Conciliengeschichte,  §  208.    Compare  Langen,  Geschichte  der  romischen 
Kirche  von  Leo  I  bis  Nikolaus  I,  pp.  34aff. 

2  On  this  section  of  papal  history  see  Liutprandus,  Historia  Gestorum 
Regum  et  Imperatorum,  also  Liber  de  Rebus  Gestis  Ottonis ;  Arnulf  cited 
by  Mansi,  XIX.  131-133;  Baronius,  Annales  Eccl.,  annis  904—964. 

1  Hefele,  §  538;  Gregorovius,  Geschichte  der  Stadt  Rom.  IV.  39-70. 
4  Geschichte  der  Papste  seit  dem  Ausgang  des  Mittelalters,  I.  60-77. 


212  THE   ROMAN    TYPE 

what  might  be  expected  of  true  vicars  of  the  Christ. 
Clement  V,  in  the  fullness  of  his  wrath  over  the  en- 
croachments of  the  Venetians  upon  Ferrara,  not  only  de- 
nounced against  them  the  full  list  of  spiritual  penalties, 
but  made  their  property  liable  to  confiscation  and  their 
persons  to  enslavement  wherever  they  might  be  seized.1 
Gregory  XI  gave  vent  to  his  rage  against  the  Florentines 
in  the  same  extravagant  and  outrageous  terms.2  Clement 
VI  in  his  effort  to  crush  the  emperor,  Lewis  of  Bavaria, 
exhausted  all  the  resources  of  the  language  of  impas- 
sioned invective.  No  pen  of  mortal,  we  believe,  has  out- 
done this  strain:  "We  humbly  implore  divine  power  to 
repress  the  insanity  of  the  aforesaid  Lewis,  to  bring  down 
and  crush  his  pride,  to  overthrow  him  by  the  might  of  its 
right  hand,  to  inclose  him  in  the  hands  of  his  enemies 
and  pursuers,  and  to  deliver  over  to  them  his  prostrate 
body.  Let  the  snare  be  made  ready  for  him  in  secret,  and 
let  him  fall  into  it.  Let  him  be  accursed  coming  in;  let 
him  be  accursed  going  out.  The  Lord  smite  him  with 
folly,  and  blindness,  and  frenzy  of  mind.  Let  the  heavens 
send  their  lightnings  upon  him.  Let  the  wrath  of  the 
omnipotent  God  and  of  the  saints  Peter  and  Paul  burn 
against  him  in  this  world  and  in  that  to  come.  Let  the 
whole  earth  fight  against  him ;  let  the  ground  open  and 
swallow  him  up  alive.  In  one  generation  let  his  name 
be  blotted  out  and  his  memory  extinguished  from  the 
earth.  Let  all  the  elements  be  against  him.  Let  his 
habitation  become  a  desert ;  let  all  the  merits  of  the  saints 
above  confound  him,  and  make  open  display  of  vengeance 
upon  him  in  this  life ;  and  let  his  sons  be  cast  out  of  their 
habitations,  and  with  his  own  eyes  let  him  see  them  de- 

1  Raynaldus,  Annales  Eccl.,  anno  1309.  *  Ibid.,  anno  1376. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  213 

stroyed  in  the  hands  of  enemies."1  Taken  all  in  all,  the 
Avignon  pontiffs  afford  a  most  pitiful  ground  of  confi- 
dence as  to  their  possession  of  a  prerogative  to  give  the 
rule  of  faith  and  the  law  of  duty  to  the  human  race. 
But  if  it  is  close  to  absurdity  to  credit  as  much  as  that 
to  them,  what  shall  be  said  of  their  successors  near  the 
end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  especially  of  such  repre- 
sentatives of  corrupt  administration  as  Sixtus  IV,  Inno- 
cent VIII,  and  Alexander  VI?  The  sense  of  spiritual 
responsibility  in  these  men  was  completely  overshadowed 
by  the  ambitions  common  to  secular  rulers.  As  Gregor- 
ovius  remarks:  "With  Sixtus  IV  the  priestly  character 
of  the  pope  began  to  vanish,  and  that  of  territorial  lord 
became  so  prominent  that  the  successors  of  Peter  in  that 
era  appeared  as  representatives  of  Italian  dynasties,  only 
accidentally  holding  the  place  of  popes  and  wearing  the 
tiara  in  place  of  the  ducal  crown.  The  thoroughly 
worldly  schemes  to  which  the  popes  now  devoted  them- 
selves required  more  than  ever  the  use  of  worldly  means, 
such  as  financial  speculations,  traffic  in  offices  and  in 
matters  of  grace,  unprincipled  arts  of  statecraft,  and  the 
dominance  of  nepotism.  Never  before  was  nepotism 
driven  with  such  recklessness.  .  .  .  Papal  proteges,  in 
most  instances  the  actual  bastards  of  the  popes,  Vatican 
princes,  being  brought  upon  the  theater  of  Roman  affairs 
with  every  new  incumbent  of  the  papal  office,  advanced 
suddenly  to  power,  tyrannized  over  Rome  and  over  the 
pope  himself,  contended  for  countships  in  a  brief  round 
of  craft  and  intrigue  against  hereditary  lords  and  against 
cities,  kept  in  good  fortune  oftentimes  only  so  long  as  the 
pope  lived,  and  founded,  even  when  their  power  went  to 

1  Raynaldus,  anno  1346. 


214  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

pieces,  new  families  of  papal  princes."1  Among  the  rep- 
resentatives of  this  strange  regime  Alexander  VI  earned 
the  crown  of  infamy.  Having  gained  his  election  by  a 
shameless  use  of  bribery,  he  ruled  chiefly  in  the  interest 
of  his  children  who  had  been  born  in  adultery,  and 
became  virtually  a  copartner  in  the  criminal  career  of  one 
of  the  most  unprincipled  characters  in  history,  his  son, 
Caesar  Borgia.  So  incontrovertible  is  the  evidence 
against  him  that  in  the  better  range  of  Roman  Catholic 
scholarship  the  hope  of  any  successful  defense  has  van- 
ished. Pastor  emphatically  repudiates  the  possibility  of 
any  rehabilitation  of.  the  character  of  Alexander  VI.2 

Though  wont  to  denounce  the  Reformation  of  the  six- 
teenth century  as  the  fountain  head  of  modern  woes,  the 
popes  undoubtedly  have  derived  great  benefit  from  that 
source.  The  presence  of  a  neighboring  power  like  Prot- 
estantism has  helped  very  efficiently  to  place  them  on 
their  good  behavior.  That  is  not  saying,  however,  that 
in  recent  times  they  have  not  sometimes  manifested  tem- 
pers which  appear  in  glaring  contrast  with  their  tremen- 
dous claims.  Even  a  pontiff  so  highly  reputed  for 
natural  amiability  as  Pius  IX  gave  a  conspicuous  example 
of  this  order  of  self-manifestation.  Referring  to  the  ex- 
communications visited  upon  those  who  had  taken  part 
in  the  project  of  annexing  the  Estates  of  the  Church  to 
the  kingdom  of  Italy,  he  said:  "True,  I  cannot,  like 
Saint  Peter,  hurl  certain  thunders  which  turn  bodies  to 
ashes;  nevertheless,  I  can  hurl  thunders  which  turn  souls 
to  ashes.  And  I  have  done  it  by  excommunicating  all 
those  who  perpetrated  the  sacrilegious  spoliation,  or  had 

>  Geschichte  der  Stadt  Rom,  VII.  231-233. 

2Geschichte  der  Papste  seit  dem  Ausgang  des  Mittclalters,  I.  588,  III. 
27  iff. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  215 

a  hand  in  it."1  The  pertinent  comment  is  not  far  to 
seek.  If  a  tithe  of  the  spirit  of  arbitrary  and  inflated 
sovereignty  which  breathes  through  these  words  was 
operative  as  a  motive  power  in  Pius  IX  when  he  was 
pressing  for  the  promulgation  of  the  dogma  of  papal 
infallibility,  then  a  broad  black  zone  of  suspicion  is  spread 
over  that  dogma,  since  the  pontiff  was  the  most  potent 
factor  in  securing  its  declaration. 

A  very  serious  bearing  upon  the  present  theme  must  | 
be  assigned  to  the  part  which  the  popes  have  fulfilled  / 
in  the  history  of  intolerance.    No  right-minded  man  wilK 
care  to  deny  that  persecution  for  cause  of  religion  has  \ 
constituted  a  dismal  tragedy,  and  left  a  most  deplorable  ) 
blot  upon  the  records  of  Christianity.     Nothing  besides 
in  those  records  is  so  well  adapted  to  invite  the  scorn  and 
aversion  of  the  non-Christian  nations.    Manifestly,  then, 
no  slight  ground  of  impeachment  stands  against  those  by 
whose  consent  or  command  the  tragedy  has  been  enacted. 
Nor  will  it  answer  to  plead  that  in  this  matter  the  popes 
have  been  no  worse  than  their  times.     If  they  were  in 
truth  infallible  vicars  of  Christ,  they  ought  to  have  been 
better  than  their  times,  instead  of  acquiescing  in  proceed- 
ings which  were  to  be  a  capital  horror  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  future  generations.    Moreover,  it  cannot  be  said 
unqualifiedly  that  they  were  as  good  as  their  respective 
eras.     Proof  has  already  been  given  that  the  nineteenth 
century  popes  as  a  body  fell  in  their  teaching  below  the 
standard  of  tolerance  which  the  general  movement  of 
civilization  tended  to  establish.2    As  regards  those  who 


1  Discorsi,  I.  158,  cited  by  William  Arthur,  The  Pope,  the  King,  and  the 
People,  I  40,  41.  'Chap,  i,  sect.  iii. 


2i6  THE   ROMAN   TYPE 

ruled  the  Church  in  the  darker  eras  of  persecution,  a 
considerable  percentage  may  not  have  been  distinguished 
by  extra  zeal  for  measures  of  harsh  repression.  But 
some  of  them  were  thus  distinguished.  In  the  mandatory 
epistles  of  Innocent  III  nothing  is  more  prominent  than 
the  stern  order  to  coerce  the  heretics  and  to  visit  them 
with  severe  punishments.1  The  action  taken  at  the 
Fourth  Lateran  Council,  held  under  his  auspices,  was 
perfectly  in  line  with  his  administration  as  a  whole.  In 
the  article  De  Hareticis  the  council  instituted  a  regular 
plan  of  search  for  heretics,  a  scheme  which  served  as  the 
germ  of  the  Inquisition.  By  the  same  article  the  tem- 
poral lord  was  put  under  bonds  to  exterminate  heresy. 
"If  a  temporal  lord,"  says  the  decree,  "after  being  sum- 
moned and  admonished  by  the  Church,  shall  neglect  to 
purge  his  land  of  heretical  defilement,  the  metropolitan 
and  the  bishops  of  the  province  shall  bind  him  with  the 
excommunication.  If  he  refuses  to  give  satisfaction 
within  a  year,  his  case  shall  be  brought  before  the 
supreme  pontiff,  and  he  shall  declare  his  vassals  released 
from  their  allegiance,  and  shall  give  over  his  land  to  the 
occupation  of  Catholics,  who  having  exterminated  the 
heretics,  shall  possess  it  without  challenge  and  preserve 
it  in  purity  of  faith."2  Innocent  IV  instructed  Italian 
inquisitors  to  require  magistrates  fully  to  observe  a  code 
in  which  obstinate  heretics  were  sentenced  to  death  by 
fire.3  By  the  same  pontiff  the  practice  of  withholding 
from  the  person  charged  with  heresy  the  names  of  both 
accusers  and  witnesses  was  explicitly  justified.4  Inno- 


1  Lib.  i.  epist.  81,  509,  ii.  i,  iii.  3,  vii.  212,  ix.  18,  102,  x.  130,  149. 
»Mansi,  XXII.  987. 

» Eymeric,     Directorium     Inquisitorum    cum    Commentariis    Francisci 
Pegnae,  Appendix   pp.  5-15.  *  Directorium,  p.  137. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  217 

cent  VIII,  when  the  magistrates  of  Brescia,  in  1486, 
refused  to  execute  the  sentences  of  the  Inquisition  with- 
out seeing  the  trials,  ordered  the  inquisitor  to  excom- 
municate them  if  they  did  not  render  compliance  within 
six  days1 — an  incident  among  many  which  shows  that 
the  office  of  the  secular  government  in  the  punishment 
of  heretics  was  essentially  ministerial,  and  was  so  re- 
garded by  the  ecclesiastical  power.2  Leo  X  in  the  bull 
Exsurge  Domine  (1520),  which  seems  to  have  been  is- 
sued in  perfect  ex  cathedra  form,3  gave  a  pontifical  sanc- 
tion to  the  burning  of  heretics  by  condemning  this 
soberly-worded  statement  of  Luther,  "It  is  contrary  to 
the  will  of  the  Spirit  that  heretics  should  be  burned."4 
Pius  V  warned  the  French  king,  Charles  IX,  that  if  he 
failed  in  his  duty  to  make  an  end  of  the  Protestants  in 
his  realm  he  might  expect  to  earn  the  retribution  which 
came  upon  King  Saul  for  his  refusal  to  smite  the  Ama- 
lekites,  charged  him  to  exterminate  heresy  even  to  the 
roots  and  the  fibers  of  the  roots  (radices,  atque  etiam 
radicum  fibras),  and  plied  him,  as  well  as  other  mem- 
bers of  the  royal  family,  with  admonitions  well  calculated 
to  incite  to  such  a  tragedy  as  the  Saint  Bartholomew 


1  Bull  Dilectus  filius,  Sept.  30,  1486,  Directorium,  Appendix,  p.  84. 

1  The  statements  of  Bellarmine  indicate  how  free  eminent  exponents  of 
Roman  Catholicism  were  in  a  former  age  to  admit  the  responsibility  of 
the  Church  for  the  severities  used  against  heretics.  Referring  to  Luther's 
view  that  capital  punishment  ought  not  to  be  inflicted  on  heretics,  he  says: 
"All  Catholics  teach  the  contrary.  .  .  .  That  heretics  have  often  been  burned 
by  the  Church  (quod  hasrctici  sint  saepe  ab  ecclesia  combusti),  can  be  shown 
if  we  adduce  a  few  examples  from  many.  To  omit  unnumbered  others 
(alios  infinites)  John  Huss  and  Jerome  of  Prague  were  burned  at  the  Council 
of  Constance  by  the  Emperor  Sigismund"  (Be  Membris  Eccl.  Mil.,  lib.  iii. 
cap.  21,  22).  Anyone  can  see  from  his  language  that  the  distinguished 
dogmatist  considered  the  secular  power,  in  the  matter  of  burning  heretics, 
simply  instrumental  to  the  Church. 

'  Billot  numbers  it  among  documents  indubitably  ex  cathedra  (Tractatus 
de  Ecclesia  Christi,  Tomus  Tertius,  De  Subjecto  Potestatis,  1900,  p.  167). 

4  Proposition  33.  Haereticos  comburi  est  contra  voluntatem  Spiritus 
(Bullurium  Romanum,  edit,  of  1638,  I.  452). 


218  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

massacre.1  Gregory  XIII,  a  little  later,  ordered  a  public 
rejoicing  over  the  accomplished  tragedy,  and  memorial- 
ized it  by  a  coin  bearing  the  inscription,  "Ugonottorum 
strages."  Furthermore  he  had  an  historical  picture  exe- 
cuted, one  of  the  scenes  of  which  was  set  off  with  the 
significant  words,  "Pontifex  Colinii  necem  probat" — 
"The  pontiff  approves  the  slaying  of  Coligny."2 
Y  In  the  history  of  the  forcible  repression  of  dissenting 
j  faiths  the  maximum  horror  attaches  to  the  Spanish  In- 
\C[Uisition.  How  were  the  popes  related  to  that  work? 
Two  things  have  been  said  in  an  attempt  to  minify  their 
responsibility.  It  has  been  claimed  that  the  readiness  of 
the  popes  to  receive  appeals  from  the  sentences  of  the 
Spanish  tribunal  was  a  token  of  an  indisposition  on  their 
part  to  sanction  the  proceedings  of  that  tribunal.  But 
the  claim  is  without  any  substantial  ground.  It  has  been 
customary  with  the  Roman  pontiffs  to  jealously  guard 
their  appellate  jurisdiction.  At  the  time  when  the  In- 
quisition was  doing  its  most  fearful  work  it  was  finan- 
cially profitable  to  entertain  appeals,  since  wealthy  "Con- 
versos"  were  ready  to  buy  at  Rome  the  mercy  which  was 
denied  them  in  Spain.  Men  of  the  stamp  of  Innocent 
VIII  and  Alexander  VI  cared  nothing  for  the  victims 
who  appealed  to  their  grace,  and  showed  as  much  by 
taking  back  with  one  hand  what  they  gave  with  the 
other.  A  signal  instance  of  this  double-dealing  was  fur- 
nished by  the  latter,  September  17,  1498,  when  he  "ad- 
dressed a  brief  to  the  Spanish  inquisitors  empowering 
them  to  proceed  against  all  heretics,  notwithstanding  all 

1  De  Potter,  Lettres  de  Saint  Pie  V.  See  in  particular  letters  xii,  xiii, 
xvii,  xyiii,  xxiv,  xxix,  xxxii,  xxxiii. 

*  Baird,  History  of  the  Rise  of  the  Huguenots,  II.  533.  For  a  very  full 
compendium  of  evidence  on  the  relation  of  the  popes  to  repressive  measures 
against  heresy,  see  Eymeric,  Directorium  Inqvusitorum,  Appendix. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  219 

letters  of  absolution  and  redintegration  heretofore  or 
hereafter  issued,  for  all  such  letters  were  to  be  held  as 
having  been  granted  inadvertently."1  With  popes  of  a 
higher  character  the  motive  for  receiving  appeals  was  at 
best  a  doubt  as  to  the  sufficiency  of  the  grounds  of  con- 
viction. The  compassionate  desire  to  spare  real  offenders 
against  any  item  of  reputed  orthodoxy  was,  to  all  appear- 
ance, a  perfectly  insignificant  factor  during  the  prolonged 
epoch  of  inquisitorial  terror.  The  second  ground  of  ex- 
culpation, or  that  based  in  the  assumption  that  the 
Spanish  Inquisition  was  preeminently  a  political  insti- 
tution, is  equally  unavailing.  Even  if  it  had  been  of  that 
character,  the  popes  would  not  stand  absolved  of  respon- 
sibility for  its  merciless  and  destructive  enterprise.  In- 
deed, it  might  be  contended  that  for  them  to  subordinate 
their  power  to  the  service  of  an  instrument  of  political 
despotism  would  have  involved  a  specially  disgraceful 
abuse  of  their  office.  As  to  the  actual  character  of  the 
Spanish  Inquisition,  while  it  is  true  that  it  had  a  some- 
what intimate  connection  with  the  State,  it  was  neverthe- 
less a  distinctively  ecclesiastical  institution,  devoted  to 
the  ecclesiastical  purpose  of  purging  the  land  of  heretical 
defilement,  and  receiving  for  its  servants  special  immuni- 
ties and  privileges  by  grant  of  pontifical  authority.  Its 
supreme  officials  obtained  their  commissions  from  the 
popes,  .and  were  treated  by  them  as  eminently  worthy  of 
applause.  Extant  letters  of  Sixtus  IV  and  Alexander 
VI  show  how  effusive  they  could  be  in  praising  the  work 
of  a  Torquemada.2  And  more  substantial  tokens  of 
approval  than  these  verbal  encomiums  were  rendered. 


1  Lea,  History  of  the  Inquisition  of  Spain,  II.  113-114. 
J  Ibid.,  I.  174. 


220  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

Thus  Pius  V  in  the  bull  Si  dc  protegendis,  April  I,  1569, 
ordered  the  delivery  to  the  secular  arm,  for  the  punish- 
ment due  to  high  treason,  of  anyone  maltreating  or  even 
threatening  an  official  of  the  Inquisition  or  destroying  or 
altering  its  records.1  This  bull,  if  not  meant  specifically 
for  Spain,  included  that  country.  "The  Spanish  Inquisi- 
tion claimed  the  benefit  of  it,  and  had  a  Castilian  version 
of  it  published  every  year."2  In  individual  instances 
papal  zeal  outran  even  that  of  the  Spanish  heresy-hun- 
ters. A  case  in  point  was  furnished  by  Paul  IV,  who  in 
1559  authorized  the  Spanish  tribunal  to  hand  over  for 
execution  even  such  recanting  heretics  as  had  never  re- 
lapsed, provided  the  genuineness  of  their  repentance  was 
suspected.3  So  the  evidence  of  well-attested  facts  refutes 
the  grounds  of  exculpation.  The  spectacle  of  blazing 
fagots,  so  cruelly  frequent  in  Spain,  must  ever  offer  its 
effective  comment  on  the  claims  of  those  who  profess 
to  be  the  infallible  vicars  of  the  Prince  of  Peace. 

The  delinquency  of  the  popes  as  respects  guiding 
Christendom  toward  the  platform  of  religious  tolerance 
has  been  well-nigh  matched  by  their  fault  in  relation  to 
the  witchcraft  delusion.  Innocent  VIII  in  the  bull 
Summis  desiderantes  gave  full  sanction  to  the  wildest 
notions  respecting  the  destructive  powers  of  witches,4 
and  some  of  his  successors  also  made  their  contribution 
to  one  of  the  most  fatal  epidemics  of  foolishness  that 
ever  ravaged  civilized  communities.  The  popes  in  this 
matter  may  not  have  been  worse  than  many  others, 
whether  Catholics  or  Protestants.  The  pertinent  con- 
sideration is  that  by  their  deadly  fallibility  they  helped 

1  Bullarium  Romanum,  edit,  of  1638,  II.  210.  *  Lea,  III.  189. 

*  Raynaldus,  Annales  Eccl.,  anno  1559,  n.  18. 

*  Ibid.,  anno  1484,  n.  74. 


PAPAL    ABSOLUTISM  221 

on  the  insane  excesses  of  the  age,  and  through  their 
teachings  raised  barriers  against  the  incoming  of  more 
enlightened  views,  so  that  the  effective  safeguard  against 
a  recrudescence  of  the  witchcraft  delusion  has  been  pro- 
vided rather  by  the  progress  of  science  and  culture  in 
general  than  by  the  consensus  of  Roman  Catholic  theo- 
logians. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  remind  the  reader  that  the 
preceding  discussion  stands  in  close  logical  relation  with 
the  subject-matter  of  the  closing  section  of  the  preceding 
chapter.  Since  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  has  accepted 
the  dogma  of  papal  infallibility,  the  evidence  which 
serves  to  refute  that  dogma  serves  at  the  same  time  to 
discredit  the  claim  of  the  Church  to  infallibility,  at  least 
so  far  as  the  Church  is  identified  with  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic communion. 


CHAPTER  III 

SOME  FEATURES  OF  THE  SACRAMENTAL  SYSTEM 

I. — THE  GENERAL  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  SACRAMENTS 

y'  THE  Council  of  Trent  gave  such  large  attention  to  th§_ 
sacraments,  and  affirmed  so  specifically  the  characteristic 
ideas  of  mediaeval  scholasticism  on  this  theme,  that  little 
room  was  left  for  further  developments.  In  a  sketch, 
therefore,  of  Roman  sacerdotalism  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury it  will  not  be  necessary  to  award  a  lengthy  consid- 
eration to  the  sacramental  system.  It  will  suffice  to  show 
that  recent  dogmatists  have  neither  ameliorated  the  ex- 
treme features  of  the  mediaeval  and  Tridentine  system 
nor  furnished  any  satisfactory  means  of  defending  those 
features  against  most  serious  objections. 

As  respects  the  function  of  the  sacraments  in  the 
sphere  of  Christianity,  very  full  evidence  is  afforded 
that  there  has  been  no  abatement  from  the  ultra- 
ceremonial  standpoint  on  the  part  of  Roman  Catholic 
theologians  in  times  adjacent  to  the  present.  The 
enormous  importance  which  they  attach  to  that  func- 
tion is  evinced,  in  the  first  place,  by  the  broad  con- 
trast which  they  draw  in  common  between  the  sacra- 
mental rites  of  the  Old  Testament  and  those  of  the  new 
dispensation.  "The  sacraments  of  the  old  law,"  says 
Monsabre,  "invited  men  to  ask  for  the  righteousness,  the 
holiness,  the  life  of  God ;  the  sacraments  of  the  new  law 
confer  directly  these  great  gifts.  The  sacraments  of  the 
old  law  were  only  directive  signs,  the  sacraments  of  the 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  223 

new  law  are  efficacious  signs."1  "If  the  proper  character 
of  sacraments,"  writes  Hurter,  "is  located  in  this,  that 
they  are  causes  of  sanctification,  then  the  sacraments  of 
the  Old  Testament  are  called  sacraments  only  by  way  of 
analogy ;  for  the  sacraments  of  the  New  Testament  cause 
true  sanctity,  while  the  sacraments  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment effected  only  the  shadow  and  figure  of  true  sanctity, 
namely,  a  legal  sanctity."2  Heinrich  and  others  insist  in 
like  manner  upon  the  wide  difference  between  the  sacra- 
mental rites  of  the  two  dispensations.3  In  the  second 
place,  the  vast  importance  which  the  latest  dogmatists 
attach  to  the  office  of  the  sacraments  is  shown  by  the 
resoluteness  and  unanimity  with  which  they  assert  that 
these  rites,  so  far  from  being  simply  signs  and  pledges  of 
grace,  are  instrumental  causes  of  grace,  producing  their 
proper  effects  ex  op  ere  operate  in  subjects  who  do  not 
interpose  an  obstacle.  Even  the  Scotist  view,  though  it 
does  not  necessarily  detract  from  the  benefits  connected 
with  the  sacraments,  is  repudiated  as  not  doing  full  jus- 
tice to  these  sacred  ordinances  of  the  new  law,  since  it 
makes  them  rather  occasions  for  special  workings  of  the 
Divine  Spirit  in  the  recipients  than  actual  bearers  or  in- 
strumental causes  of  grace.  In  the  view  of  Sasse  it  is 
simply  the  requirement  of  the  faith  to  attach  to  them  the 
latter  character.  "It  is  a  revealed  dogma,"  he  says,  "that 
the  sacraments  of  the  new  law  are  instrumental  causes 
of  the  grace  which  they  signify,  so  that,  indeed,  by  virtue 
of  the  visible  sign  itself,  duly  applied  according  to 
Christ's  institution,  grace  is  immediately  conferred  upon 


i  Exposition  du  Dogme  Catholique,  XI.  88,  89. 
z  Theolpgiae  Dogmaticae  Compendium,  eleventh  edit.,  III.  243. 
'Heinrich,  Lehrbuch  der  Katholischen  Dogmatik,   1900,  p.  622;  Sasse, 
Institutiones  Theologies  de  Sacramentis,  I.  49,  83-89. 


224  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

men  not  opposing  an  obstacle."1  The  like  conception  of 
the  sacraments  is  set  forth  by  other  writers,  if  not  as  re- 
vealed dogma,  at  least  as  indubitable  truth.2  On  this 
basis  it  evidently  follows  that  good  motions  and  dispo- 
sitions in  the  recipient  do  not  positively  condition  sacra- 
mental grace,  but  only  serve  to  remove  a  hindrance  to  a 
cause  which  works  with  an  intrinsic  and  independent 
efficiency.  As  Heinrich,  quoting  from  Bellarmine,  puts 
the  matter:  "Will,  faith,  and  penitence  are  necessarily 
required  in  the  receiving  adult  as  dispositions  on  the  part 
of  the  subject,  not  as  active  causes;  faith  and  penitence 
do  not,  indeed,  effect  sacramental  grace,  nor  give  efficacy 
to  the  sacraments,  but  merely  take  away  obstacles  which 
hinder  the  sacraments  from  exercising  their  efficacy; 
wherefore  in  infants,  where  the  disposition  is  not  re- 
quired, justification  takes  place  without  these  things."3 
Again,  the  tendency  of  recent  Roman  Catholic  thinking 
to  espouse  the  most  emphatic  views  of  the  virtue  of  the 
sacraments  is  clearly  evinced  by  the  well-nigh  unquali- 
fied stress  which  is  placed  upon  their  necessity.  As  will 
be  shown  later,  Roman  Catholic  theology,  even  within 
the  last  few  decades,  has  put  in  evidence  an  overwhelm- 
ing consensus  on  the  side  of  the  conclusion  that  untold 
millions  of  human  beings  are  eternally  excluded  from 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  for  no  other  cause  than  failure 
to  receive  a  sacrament  in  relation  to  which  they  had  no 
sort  of  knowledge  or  opportunity. 

The  last  statement  furnishes  by  itself  a  most  formida- 
ble objection  to  the  estimate  which  is  placed  upon  the 

1  Inst.  Theol.  de  Sacramentis,  I.  275. 

*  Hurter,  III.   ti^fi. ;    Heinrich,  pp.  6ojfi.;    Billot,  De  Ecclesiae  Sacra- 
mentis, fourth  edit.,  I.  535.  » Lehrbuch,  p.  618. 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  225 

sacraments  in  Roman  sacerdotalism.  What  becomes  of  \ 
a  truly  ethical  and  spiritual  religion  when  the  mere  lack 
of  an  external  condition  is  supposed  to  condemn  countless  / 
souls  to  an  eternal  exclusion  from  heaven?  In  another  ' 
point  of  view  also  the  sacramental  teaching  of  Romanism 
invites  to  a  most  serious  challenge.  The  contrast  which 
it  draws  between  the  rites  of  the  old  law  and  those  of  the 
new  affords  a  basis  for  a  piece  of  externalism  in  religion 
that  amounts  to  a  veritable  desecration  of  the  Christian 
standard.  From  a  consideration  of  the  emptiness  and 
inefficacy  imputed  to  the  Old  Testament  sacraments,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  of  the  treasure  wrapped  up  in  the 
New  Testament  sacraments,  on  the  other  hand,  an  incen- 
tive arises  to  assert  that  the  interior  conditions  of  salva- 
tion are  less  under  the  Christian  than  they  were  under 
the  Hebrew  dispensation;  that,  in  fact,  the  subjects  of 
the  former,  on  account  of  their  superior  sacramental 
privileges,  can  be  released  in  part  from  the  demand  for 
penitence  and  love  which  rested  upon  the  subjects  of  the 
latter.  This  strange  induction,  which  puts  a  premium 
on  machinery  as  against  ethical  religion,  and  sinks  Chris- 
tianity far  below  the  plane  of  prophetical  Judaism,  may 
not  have  been  a  matter  of  universal  advocacy  in  later 
Romanism.  But  it  has  been  asserted  in  widely  circulated 
books,  and  distinctly  maintained,  as  will  be  shown  in  the 
concluding  section  of  this  chapter,  by  writers  who  have 
been  loaded  with  extraordinary  honors.  It  makes,  there- 
fore, a  valid  comment  on  the  tendency  of  the  ultra  sacra- 
mental theory  with  which  we  are  dealing. 

Among  remaining  grounds  of  objection  let  a  brief 
mention  of  two  suffice  in  this  connection.  The  theory 
under  review  violates  the  demand  for  perspective  in 


226  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

dealing  with  the  New  Testament  content.  How  much 
of  the  recorded  discourse  of  Jesus  was  given  to  inculcating 
ceremonial  obligations?  Not  above  two  or  three  sen- 
tences, if  we  exclude,  as  we  have  a  right  to  do,  a  sacra- 
mental import  from  the  sixth  chapter  of  the  fourth  Gospel. 
How  much  of  the  apostolic  message  was  occupied  with  the 
description  or  inculcation  of  sacramental  rites?  Not  so 
much  as  a  single  chapter  of  average  length.  That  which 
filled  the  thought  and  overflowed  in  the  speech  of  Jesus 
and  of  his  first  ambassadors  evidently  lay  in  the  sphere  of 
ethical  religion,  and  not  in  that  of  ceremonial  performance. 
The  dogmatic  aberration  which  makes  the  sacraments 
of  chief  consequence  is  more  akin  to  the  Pharisaism  withf 
which  Jesus  came  into  mortal  conflict  than  to  the  spiritual 
ideal  of  the  New  Testament.  Philosophically  also  the 
ultra  sacramental  theory  is  chargeable  with  no  slight  dif- 
ficulty. One  can  conceive  of  a  physical  entity  or  transac- 
tion as  being  mediately  the  cause  of  a  spiritual  effect; 
that  is,  as  having  a  certain  efficacy  to  remind  of  truths 
or  facts  which  are  adapted  to  quicken  thought  and  feel- 
ing. But  who  can  figure  the  manner  in  which  a  physical 
entity  or  operation  actually  bears  a  spiritual  grace  and 
directly  imparts  spiritual  benefits  to  a  spiritual  subject? 
One  might  as  well  undertake  to  express  faith  and  love  in 
terms  of  chemistry  as  try  to  fulfill  such  a  task.  The 
postulated  agent  is  quite  disparate  with  the  effect. 
Doubtless  the  manner  of  working  of  the  Divine  Spirit 
is  hidden  from  us,  but  the  Spirit  is  at  least  the  right 
kind  of  an  agent  for  the  working  of  transformations  in 
a  spiritual  subject.  The  rejected  Scotist  theory  is 
therefore  any  amount  more  credible  than  that  which  has 
been  given  the  stamp  or  orthodoxy  in  the  interest  of 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  227 

a  higher  rating-  of  the  mystery  and  importance  of  the 
visible  rites. 

In  a  system  which  places  quite  as  much  emphasis  upon 
ceremonial  transactions  as  upon  subjective  conditions  it 
is  not  illogical  to  insist  that  the  sacramental  grace  will 
be  forfeited  by  a  fault  in  the  sacramental  performance.  J 
This  consideration  may  help  to  explain  in  a  measure  why 
Roman  dogmatists  have  retained  a  fairly  strict  doctrine 
of  intention,  notwithstanding  the  hazard  to  which  it 
exposes  faith  in  the  validity  of  the  ecclesiastical  organ- 
ism. According  to  this  doctrine  the  ministrant  of  a  sac- 
rament must  intend  to  do  therein  what  the  Church  does, 
that  is,  to  fulfill  the  general  purpose  of  the  Church  in 
that  particular  rite,  otherwise  no  sacrament  in  fact  oc- 
curs. The  doctrine  has  a  conciliar  basis.  At  the  Council 
of  Florence  it  was  declared :  "All  sacraments  are  effected 
by  three  factors,  namely,  by  things  as  matter,  by  words 
as  form,  and  by  the  person  conferring  the  sacrament  with 
the  intention  of  doing  what  the  Church  does;  if  any  of 
these  is  absent  the  sacrament  is  not  performed."1  The 
Council  of  Trent  ordained :  "If  anyone  saith  that,  in 
ministers,  when  they  effect  and  confer  the  sacraments, 
there  is  not  required  the  intention  at  least  of  doing  what 
the  Church  does:  let  him  be  anathema."2  The  council 
furthermore  emphasized  the  need  of  intention  in  the  min- 
istrant by  calling  in  question  the  validity  of  the  sacra- 
ment of  penance  in  a  case  where  the  priest  had  no 
intention  of  "acting  seriously  and  absolving  truly."3 
According  to  the  natural  interpretation  of  these  decisions, 

1  Deer.  pro.  Armen.  *  Sess.  vii,  De  Sacramentis  in  genere,  can.  n. 

*  Sess.  xiv.  De  Poenitent.  et  Extrem.  Unct.  Sacramentis,  cap.  vi. 


228  THE   ROMAN   TYPE 

the  intention  to  go  through  the  mere  form  of  the  sacra- 
ment, without  regard  to  its  meaning  and  purpose,  does 
not  suffice.  A  few  writers,  following  Catharinus,  who 
set  forth  his  view  at  the  time  of  the  Tridentine  Council, 
have  limited  the  necessary  intention  to  the  bare  externals. 
But  the  weight  of  conciliar  authority  was  too  plainly 
against  them  to  permit  their  theory  to  gain  any  large 
currency.  It  seems  also  to  have  been  squarely  excluded 
by  the  act  of  Pope  Alexander  VIII,  near  the  end  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  in  condemning  the  following  propo- 
sition :  "Baptism  is  valid,  being  performed  by  a  minister 
who  observes  the  entire  external  rite  and  form  of  baptiz- 
ing, but  resolves  with  himself  in  his  heart:  I  do  not 
intend  what  the  Church  does."1  The  language  of  Leo 
XIII  in  his  letter  on  Anglican  orders  might  appear,  it  is 
true,  to  conflict  with  the  sentence  of  his  predecessor. 
"The  Church,"  he  says,  "does  not  judge  about  the  mind 
and  intention  in  so  far  as  it  is  something  by  its  nature 
internal;  but  in  so  far  as  it  is  manifested  externally  she 
is  bound  to  judge  concerning  it.  When  anyone  has 
rightly  and  seriously  made  use  of  the  due  form  and  the 
matter  requisite  for  effecting  or  conferring  a  sacrament 
he  is  considered  by  the  very  fact  to  do  what  the  Church 
does."2  This  statement  might  suggest  the  sufficiency  of 
the  intention  simply  to  go  through  the  customary  ex- 
ternals of  a  rite.  However,  there  is  no  likelihood  that 
Leo  XIII  designed  to  sanction  that  view.  He  may  be 
understood  to  say,  not  that  the  Church  is  sure  of  the 
validity  of  a  sacrament  when  the  proper  externals  are 
fulfilled,  but  only  that  she  does  not  consider  herself 


1  Cited  by  Hurter,  Theol.  Dogmat.  Compendium,  III.  258. 
*  Letter  Apostolicae  Curae,  Sept.  13,  1896. 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  229 

authorized  positively  to  challenge  the  validity  of  any 
individual  case  of  sacramental  performance  where  the 
given  conditions  have  been  observed.  The  pontiff,  there- 
fore, did  not  open  the  door  for  the  return  of  the  theory 
of  Catharinus;  and  if  we  consult  the  verdict  of  recent 
theologians  we  are  assured  that  the  door  is  effectually 
barred  against  that  theory.  "Whoever,"  says  Scheeben, 
"wills  merely  to  posit  the  outer  rite,  he  wills  to  act 
merely  with  his  own  natural  faculties  and  not  in  the 
name  of  Christ;  he  does  not  will  to  use  the  ministerial 
power  granted  by  Christ  for  the  performance  of  a  sacra- 
ment, and  so  can  bring  about  no  sacrament."1  "An 
intention  mere  externa,"  affirms  Heinrich,  "which  is 
directed  to  the  external  transaction  and  not  to  the  sacra- 
mental transaction  in  no  way  suffices."2  "The  proposi- 
tion of  Catharinus,"  writes  Hurter,  "which  affirms  that 
by  the  deliberate  external  action  itself  and  the  external 
adjuncts  the  matter  and  form  are  so  determined  to  the 
character  of  a  sacrament,  that  the  validity  of  the  sacra- 
ment is  not  able  to  be  hindered  by  any  interior  contrary 
intention,  which  may  be  hidden  in  the  mind  of  the  min- 
ister, cannot  be  admitted."3  Statements  of  identical  im- 
port are  made  by  Sasse  and  Billot  in  their  respective 
treatises  on  the  sacraments.4  In  short,  it  may  be  re-A 
garded  as  a  well-established  item  of  Roman  Catholic  1 
dogmatics  that  the  intention  mere  externa  does  not  suf- / 
fice  for  the  valid  performance  of  a  sacrament. 

What  guarantee,  then,  have  we  that  there  is  any  valid 
ministry  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church?  What  avails 
the  parading  of  an  ecclesiastical  pedigree  running  back 


1  Compendium,  III.  257. 
*  Sasse,  I.  i48ff.;  "Billot,  I.  igoft. 


230  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

to  Peter,  so  long  as  the  serious  possibility  stares  us  in  the 
face  that  one  or  another  in  the  line  may  have  received 
nothing  more  than  the  semblance  of  baptism  or  of  or- 
dination, on  account  of  the  withholding  of  the  proper 
sacramental  intention?  Who  can  offer  us  any  adequate 
guarantees  that  the  succession  has  not  been  broken  again 
and  again,  so  that  now  the  Roman  hierarchy  is  as  desti- 
tute of  the  supernatural  grace  supposed  to  be  tied  to  a 
valid  priesthood  as  is  the  ministry  of  any  schismatic  or 
heretical  communion  on  the  face  of  the  earth?  On  the 
basis  of  tangible  verifiable  evidence  no  such  guarantees 
can  be  found.  The  best  that  Roman  apologists  and  dog- 
matists can  do  is  either  to  pass  over  the  matter  in  silence 
or  to  appeal  to  divine  providence.  Those  who  adopt  the 
latter  alternative  contend  that  God  will  do  whatever  is 
necessary  to  maintain  a  perfect  succession  in  the  priest- 
hood. In  case  the  succession,  says  a  representative  of 
this  contention,  should  be  threatened  by  the  fault  of  the 
ministrant  of  the  rite  of  baptism  or  of  orders,  "our  Lord, 
not  desiring  his  own  system  to  break  down,  would  then 
either  constrain  the  consecrator  (or  the  baptizer),  to 
supply  the  needful  intention,  or  else  would  himself  im- 
part the  gift  of  orders  (or  of  baptism)  to  the  candi- 
date."1 Such  a  way  of  arguing  may  be  satisfactory  to 
one  who  is  already  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  convic- 
tion that  a  priesthood  with  continuous  outward  connec- 
tions is  the  most  essential  thing  in  the  cosmic  system. 
But  for  one  who  does  not  share  that  conviction  such 
argumentation  will  count  for  nothing.  Moreover,  he 
will  in  all  likelihood  be  vexatiously  inquisitive  on  one  or 
two  points.  He  will  be  inclined,  relative  to  the  first  of 

*S.  P.  Smith,  The  Doctrine  of  Intention,  1895,  pp.  13,  13. 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  231 

the  two  alternatives  mentioned,  to  inquire  after  the  war- 
rant for  supposing  that  it  suits  divine  administration  to 
override  the  will  of  the  priest  who  happens  to  be  a  con- 
cealed infidel  or  man  sold  to  evil,  and  to  put  into  him  the 
correct  intention  by  main  force.  In  relation  to  the  second 
alternative  he  will  be  disposed  to  ask,  Does  not  the  sup- 
position of  a  divine  bestowal  of  sacramental  benefits 
apart  from  the  functioning  of  Roman  machinery,  even 
though  it  be  done  for  the  conservation  of  the  said  ma- 
chinery, at  least  suggest  that  God  is  not  helplessly  tied 
to  that  instrumentality?  And,  if  that  is  the  case,  is  it 
not  derogatory  to  his  character  as  a  benevolent  God  to 
suppose  that  he  will  refuse  to  bestow  his  grace,  in  un- 
stinted measure,  upon  those  who  in  all  good  conscience 
seek  his  gifts  through  other  channels  than  the  perform- 
ances of  a  particular  line  of  priests?  On  the  whole,  the 
thing  most  worthy  of  the  Roman  apologist  would  be  the 
frank  confession  that  his  system  has  run  aground  on  the 
subject  of  necessary  intention,  and  that  the  way  to  con- 
serve a  monopoly  of  divine  benefits  to  his  own  party  has 
become  grievously  darkened. 

II. — THE  NECESSITY  OF  BAPTISM 

The  strong  statement  of  Bellarmine,  "Whoever  is  not 
baptized,  or  at  least  does  not  desire  baptism,  is  not  saved, 
though  the  lack  results  from  ignorance  or  impotence,"1 
embodies  the  standard  teaching  of  his  Church  in  the  en- 
tire modern  era.  According  to  that  teaching  a  catechu- 
men who  is  looking  forward  to  baptism,  but  is  cut  off 
before  the  administration  of  the  rite,  can  be  saved  in 

1  De  Sacramentis,  lib.  i,  cap.  22. 


232  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

virtue  of  his  faith,  desire,  and  purpose.  Only  on  the 
basis  of  this  sort  of  inward  compensation  does  the  lack 
of  the  outward  rite  cease  to  be  fatal.  It  follows,  since 
infants  cannot  offer  this  inward  compensation,  that  they 
are  not  saved  if  they  die  unbaptized.  So  evidently  the 
Council  of  Florence  judged  when  it  reprobated  delay  in 
administering  baptism  to  children  on  the  ground  that 
there  is  no  other  means  of  rescue  for  them.1  The  Coun- 
cil of  Trent  used  language  in  treating  of  the  subject  of 
original  sin  which  seems  to  involve  the  same  judgment.2 
In  the  Tridentine  catechism,  which  has  high,  if  not  com- 
plete, dogmatic  authority,  the  given  conclusion  was  ex- 
pressed in  unmistakable  terms.  "Nothing  can  be  more 
necessary,"  we  read  there,  "than  that  the  faithful  should 
be  taught  that  the  law  of  baptism  has  been  so  prescribed 
by  the  Lord  to  all  men,  that  unless  they  are  reborn  to 
God  through  the  grace  of  baptism,  they  are  generated  for 
everlasting  misery  and  destruction  by  their  parents, 
whether  they  be  believers  or  unbelievers.  .  .  .  Since 
for  infants  there  is  no  way  of  obtaining  salvation,  except 
baptism  is  afforded  to  them,  it  is  easily  understood  with 

,    how  grave  a  fault  those  bind  themselves  who  suffer  them 
to  be  without  the  grace  of  the  sacrament  longer  than 

\  necessity  requires."3 

Attempts  to  escape  this  somber  conclusion  on  the  fate 
of  infants  dying  without  baptism  have  been  made  by  an 
occasional  Roman  Catholic  writer.  Cajetan  in  the  six- 
teenth century  entertained  the  supposition  that  the 
prayers  of  parents  may  avail  for  such  offspring  as  have 
been  deprived  of  the  sacrament.  Amort  in  the  eighteenth 
century  gave  a  qualified  acceptance  to  this  supposition. 

1  Deer,  pro  Jacobit.  »  Sess.  v,  can.  4.  »  Pars  ii,  cap.  ii.  31,  34. 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  233 

In  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  Klee  ventured 
to  suggest  that  infants  may  be  so  enlightened  in  the 
article  of  death  as  to  be  able  to  desire  baptism,  and  more 
recently  Schell  has  given  countenance  to  the  view  that 
the  sufferings  of  infants  may  be  rated  as  a  kind  of  sac- 
rament, and  so  may  serve  to  secure  for  them  a  title  to 
salvation. 

These  instances  of  an  ameliorated  judgment  are  inter- 
esting as  tokens  of  the  direction  which  even  Roman 
Catholic  thinking  would  almost  inevitably  be  driven  to 
take,  under  modern  conditions,  were  it  not  subject  to  the 
shackles  of  an  ironclad  dogmatism ;  but  it  cannot  be  said 
that  they  have  borne  any  apparent  fruit.  A  perfectly 
overwhelming  consensus  stands  on  the  side  of  the  con- 
clusion that  infants  dying  without  baptism,  though  not 
subject  to  any  positive  infliction  of  pain,  never  gain  the 
proper  goal  of  redeemed  spirits,  being  eternally  ex- 
cluded from  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Thus  in  the  well- 
known  Catholic  Dictionary  of  Addis  and  Arnold  we 
read:  "Infants  dying  unbaptized  are  excluded  from  the 
kingdom  of  heaven."1  In  the  Kirchenlexicon  of  Wetzer 
and  Welte  the  statement  is  made:  "For  those  who  can- 
not effect  an  opus  operantis  or  awaken  a  votum  sacra- 
menti  the  actual  reception  of  baptism  is  an  indispensable 
means  for  the  attainment  of  justifying  grace."  The 
plain  inference  contained  in  this  language,  that  unbap- 
tized infants  remain  outside  the  kingdom  of  grace,  is 
drawn  in  what  follows,  and  every  attempt  to  secure  for 
them  an  entrance  into  that  kingdom  is  repudiated  as 
illegitimate.2  Precisely  the  same  ground  is  taken  in  the 


1  Article  "Baptism."    Compare  Catholic  Encyclopedia  edited  by  I 
arm  and  others.  l  Article  "Taufe,"  Vol.  XI,  pp.  1271,  1272. 


Herber 


234  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

very  full  discussion  of  the  subject  of  baptism  in  the  Dic- 
tionnaire  de  Theologie  Catholique  issued  under  the  direc- 
tion of  Vacant.  Referring  to  the  decisions  of  councils 
and  the  declarations  of  popes,  the  writer  says :  "All  these 
documents  prove  in  an  evident  fashion  how  useless  and 
vain  are  the  attempts  made  by  some  theologians  to  find, 
in  case  of  necessity,  some  equivalent  for  baptism,  and 
to  insure  by  this  means  the  eternal  salvation  of  unbap- 
tized  infants."1 

The  above  expressions  can  easily  be  paralleled  by  cita- 
tions from  numerous  writers  who  are  in  repute  for 
orthodoxy.  Thus  Perrone  wrote :  "Infants  departing 
from  this  life  without  baptism  do  not  attain  to  eternal 
salvation."  This  proposition,  he  maintained,  is  de  fide, 
or  a  part  of  the  established  faith.2  "Though  children 
dying  without  baptism,"  says  Scheeben,  "are  eternally 
excluded  from  the  glory  of  heaven,  and  accordingly  are 
so  far  damned,  as  they  endure  the  so-called  pocna  damni, 
still  they  are  not  visited  with  the  same  positive  punish- 
ments which  befall  those  who  on  account  of  grave  per- 
sonal sins  are  destined  to  hell."3  "Infants,"  observes 
Palmieri,  "if  they  fail  of  baptism,  although  they  are  with- 
out fault,  nevertheless  do  not  obtain  salvation."4  "The 
lot  of  infants  dying  without  baptism,"  contends  Mon- 
sabre,  "is  a  veritable  damnation,  because  it  is  the  effect 
of  a  malediction  pronounced  upon  the  human  race  in  the 
person  of  their  first  parent.  But  it  is  to  be  well  under- 
stood that  there  is  damnation  and  damnation."5  Hein- 
rich  writes:  "For  children,  aside  from  the  baptism  of 


1  Article  "Bapteme,"  Vol.  II.  p.  364. 

*  Pnelect.  Theol.,  second  edit.,  IV.  409.          »  Handbuch,  Vol.  IV.  §  362. 
4  Tractatus  de  Romano  Pontifice,  second  edit.,  p.  19. 

*  Exposition  du  Dogme  Catholique,  XI.  186. 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  235 

blood,  there  is  nothing  which  can  take  the  place  of  the 
sacrament."  Referring  to  the  views  of  Cajetan,  Klee, 
and  Schell,  he  adds:  "All  these  opinions  stand  more  or 
less  in  contradiction  with  the  teaching  of  the  Church  on 
the  necessity  of  baptism."1  "The  Church,"  Sasse  main- 
tains, "does  not  pray  nor  teach  the  faithful  to  pray  God 
that  he  will  save  infants  dying  without  baptism;  since, 
indeed,  there  is  no  hope  or  probability  of  their  salva- 
tion."2 "Regeneration,"  argues  Hurter,  "is  effected  by 
baptism.  Therefore  baptism  is  to  infants  absolutely 
necessary  for  salvation."3  "Theologians,"  remarks  Bil- 
lot, "are  unanimously  agreed  in  this:  the  actual  sacra- 
ment has  been  in  any  time  whatsoever  an  altogether 
necessary  means  of  salvation  to  all  tho«e  who  never  have 
had  the  use  of  reason."4  "It  is  of  faith,"  asserts  Russo, 
"that  children  dying  unbaptized  are  excluded  from 
eternal  life;  they  will  never  enjoy  the  supernatural  hap- 
piness which  the  blood  of  Christ  purchased  for  all ;  never 
contemplate  face  to  face  the  infinite  beauty  of  God ;  never 
become  citizens  of  the  kingdom  their  more  fortunate 
brethren  are  called  to  possess."5 

It  is  difficult  to  imagine  by  what  process  of  dogmatic 
desiccation  nineteenth  century  theologians  could  have\ 
qualified  themselves  coolly  to  repeat  such  a  creed  of 
gratuitous  damnation.  Surely  thought  and  feeling  alike 
in  them  must  have  been  sadly  fettered  through  enslave- 
ment to  the  prescriptions  of  a  past  age  which  viewed  the 

1  Lehrbuch,  p.  642.  2  Inst.  Theol.  de  Sacramentis,  I.  229. 

1  Theol.  Dogmat.  Compendium,  III.  280. 

4  De  Ecclesiae  Sacramentis,  I,  255. 

5  The  True  Religion  and  its  Dogmas,  p.  149.    Compare  Hunter,  Outlines 
of  Dogmatic  Theology,   III.    229;  Coppens,   A  Systematic  Study  of  the 
Catholic   Religion,   p.   226;  Byrne,   Toe  Catholic   Doctrine  of  Faith  and 
Morals,  1892,  pp.  224,  225. 


236  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 


subject  of  the  eternal  destinies  of  men  from  a  wrong 
V  angle  and  treated  it  with  heartless  superficiality.  The 
portion  of  the  race  which  has  died  in  infancy  without 
baptism  makes  an  enormous  aggregate.  What  kind  of  a 
God  can  he  be,  who  is  supposed  eternally  to  close  the  door 
of  the  kingdom  to  this  countless  throng  for  the  mere  lack 
of  a  ceremony  which,  if  applied  to  them,  could  have  no 
meaning  to  their  undeveloped  intelligence,  and  no  effect 
other  than  one  purely  magical?  Should  a  human  father 
disinherit  his  children  because  on  a  given  day  they  failed 
to  wash  their  faces  before  the  breakfast  hour,  though 
without  any  fault  of  theirs  it  was  absolutely  impossible 
to  secure  a  drop  of  water  for  the  purpose,  the  common 
judgment  would  be  that  the  paternal  character  in  that 
father  had  given  place  to  the  impulses  of  the  madman 
or  soulless  tyrant.  What,  then,  is  to  be  said  of  a  God 
who  ordains  an  eternal  forfeiture  for  a  great  part  of  the 
race  just  on  account  of  the  lack  of  a  few  drops  of  the 
baptismal  element  ?  Certainly  the  inference  must  be  that 
he  is  totally  destitute  of  the  fatherly  disposition,  that 
he  cares  nothing  for  men,  that  his  bosom  is  steeled 
against  the  claims  of  benevolence.  If  he  seems  to  make 
cost  for  the  salvation  of  the  race,  it  must  be  that  he 
consents  to  the  expenditure  simply  because  he  considers 
it  more  agreeable  to  occupy  himself  with  some  enterprise 
than  to  remain  idle.  Were  he  really  concerned  to  save 
men  he  would  have  no  inclination  to  put  into  his  scheme 
of  salvation  such  an  arbitrary  element  as  in  the  nature  of 
the  case  must  become  a  sure  ground  of  the  damnation 
of  a  great  part  of  mankind.  As  well  imagine  a  mother 
debarred  by  some  paltry  item  of  social  etiquette  from 
rushing  to  the  rescue  of  her  imperiled  child,  as  represent 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  237 

a  God  of  real  love  to  be  excluded  from  saving  offices  to 
immortal  souls  merely  because  he  had  not  been  invited 
to  pay  attention  to  them  by  a  two-minute  ceremony  on 
some  earthly  field.  It  is  the  very  deification  of  method, 
as  against  the  ends  to  which  all  rational  methods  must 
be  subordinated,  which  meets  us  in  this  abhorrent  dogma. 
All  attempts  to  justify  it  serve  only  to  discredit  it  the 
more.  Every  one  of  them  assails  the  thought  of  God 
as  a  truly  ethical  being.  Take,  for  instance,  the  following 
statement:  "Protestant  difficulties  on  this  point  arise 
from  inadequate  ideas  on  the  grace  and  the  sovereignty 
of  God.  Heaven  is  a  reward  which  is  in  no  way  due  to 
human  nature,  and  God  can  withhold  it  as  he  pleases 
without  injustice."1  What  have  we  here  but  a  picture 
of  frozen  majesty,  a  God  without  a  heart,  a  being  who 
considers  not  the  best  which  he  can  do  for  his  children, 
but  only  what  falls  within  the  legal  prerogatives  of  lord- 
ship? Manifestly  a  God  who  governs  on  that  plan,  who 
condemns  unnumbered  souls,  instrinsically  as  well  quali- 
fied as  are  any  for  the  highest  good,  to  a  dwarfed  and  im- 
poverished existence  for  an  endless  age,  when  he  might 
just  as  well  exalt  them  to  be  eternally  blessed  and 
eternally  a  blessing  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  is  no  ideal 
for  human  contemplation.  In  short,  this  dogma  of  the 
necessary  damnation  of  unbaptized  children  is  a 
grievous  affront  to  the  ethical  nature  of  God.  The 
hierarchy  which  has  published  and  tenaciously  maintained 
it  has  advertised  in  large  and  ineffaceable  characters 
its  fallibility.  It  has  subscribed  such  a  refutation  of  its 
own  claim  to  infallible  authority  as  cannot  fail  to  be 
effective  in  any  community  which  is  not  hermetically 

1  Addis  and  Arnold,  Catholic  Dictionary,  article  "Baptism." 


238  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

sealed  against  the  saner  ways  of  thinking  which  an  ad- 
vancing civilization  tends  to  introduce. 
/It  may  be  expected  that  we  should  take  account  of  the 
.scriptural  ground  of  the  dogma  which  we  have  criticised. 
/And  certainly,  if  there  were  any  such  ground,  it  would 
be  incumbent  upon  us  not  to  pass  it  by  in  silence.  But 
it  remains  to  be  discovered  that  any  New  Testament 
writer  had  the  slightest  intention  to  deal  with  the  subject 
Vof  baptism  in  relation  to  infants.1  Every  clear  reference, 
in  the  Gospels  and  Epistles,  to  baptismal  obligations  and 
privileges  was  evidently  penned  with  reference  to  adult 
subjects  to  whom  belonged  the  full  responsibilities  of 
adults.  And  even  for  them  a  large  part  of  the  impor- 
tance attached  to  baptism  belonged  to  the  peculiar  condi- 
tions of  the  time.  The  candidates  had  not  been  brought 
up  in  the  sphere  of  Christianity,  but  in  domains  generally 
distinguished  by  sharp  hostility  to  the  new  religion.  Ac- 
cordingly, baptism  meant  a  most  radical  change  of  rela- 
tionships. It  meant  a  public  declaration  of  a  new  and 
all-comprehending  allegiance.  The  obligation  to  it  was 
the  obligation  to  a  loyal  confession  of  the  holy  one  ac- 
cepted as  Lord  and  Saviour.  The  rite,  too,  was  com- 
monly administered  in  immediate  connection  with  the 
springing  up  of  faith  in  that  Saviour,  and  consequently 
seemed  to  fulfill  the  function  of  a  completing  act  in  the 
appropriation  of  Christianity.  Speaking  in  view  of  these 
special  conditions  the  New  Testament  preachers  might 
conceivably  be  incited  occasionally  to  use  rather  strong 
language  on  the  function  of  baptism.  As  it  was  a  great 


1  In  saying  this  we  by  no  means  intend  to  deny  that  the  New  Testament 
affords  ground  for  inferring  a  religious  relation  of  children,  a  relation  to 
which  a  solemn  dedicatory  rite  like  baptism  may  render  a  suitable  recogni- 
tion. 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  239 

initial  act  of  confessing  Christ,  they  could  feel  warranted 
in  connecting  with  it  the  rich  blessing  which  is  associated 
by  the  gospel  with  loyal  confession,  and  believe  that 
Christ  would  meet  his  witness  in  the  baptismal  transac- 
tion with  the  quickening  and  purifying  presence  of  his 
Spirit.  But  with  all  this  appreciation  of  the  office  of 
baptism  they  have  made  it  evident  that  they  did  not  at- 
tach to  it  a  tithe  of  the  importance  which  they  ascribed 
to  the  great  ethical  conditions  of  salvation.  A  few  casual 
statements  embrace  the  whole  sum  of  their  references  to 
the  subject.  To  proceed  on  this  scanty  and  indefinite 
basis  to  infer  such  a  necessity  for  baptism  that  even  an 
innocent  lack  of  it  must  involve  an  eternal  forfeiture  of 
salvation  is  to  do  violence  to  the  spirit  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment writers  and  to  the  indubitable  tenor  of  their  teach- 
ing. It  is  difficult  to  speak  of  an  induction  of  that  sort 
as  anything  less  than  a  defamation.  The  extravagant 
and  inflexible  ceremonialism  which  it  represents  is  dis- 
tant by  a  whole  diameter  from  the  free  spirit  of  Jesus. 

III. — TRANSUBST  AN  TIATION 

This  term,  which  more  than  any  other  expresses  the\ 
mystery  attached  to  the  eucharistic  rite  in  Roman  Catho-:  ) 
lie  dogmatics,  was  authoritatively  defined  by  the  Council/ 
of  Trent  as  follows :  "If  anyone  saith,  that,  in  the  sacred  ^ 
and  holy  sacrament  of  the  eucharist,  the  substance  of  the 
bread  and  wine  remains  conjointly  with  the  body  and 
blood  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  denieth  that  won- 
derful and  singular  conversion  of  the  whole  substance 
of  the  bread  into  the  body,  and  of  the  whole  substance 
of  the  wine  into  the  blood — the  species  only  of  the  bread  I 


240  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

'  and  wine  remaining — which  conversion,  indeed,  the 
!  Catholic  Church  most  aptly  calls  transubstantiation :  let 
\hirn  be  anathema."1  Language  of  identical  import  is 
employed  in  the  Tridentine  catechism.2  It  will  be  ob- 
served that  in  the  supposedly  infallible  declaration  of  the 
council  the  change  which  is  assumed  to  take  place  in  the 
eucharistic  elements  is  described  as  a  conversion  of  one 
substance  into  another.  The  representation  is  not  that 
the  substance  of  the  bread  is  annihilated,  and  that  the 
body  of  Christ,  made  substantially  present,  is  brought 
into  the  place  rendered  vacant  by  the  act  of  annihilation ; 
rather  the  council  teaches  that  the  bread  is  converted  into 
the  body  of  Christ.  Since  now  the  eucharistic  transac- 
tion was  not  viewed  as  giving  Christ  a  new  body,  we 
have  the  authority  of  the  Tridentine  assembly  for  the 
conclusion  that  in  every  valid  celebration  of  the  Lord's 
Supper  one  substance  is  changed  into  another  already 
existing  substance,  the  substance  of  the  bread  being  con- 
verted into  the  preexisting  body,  and  the  substance  of  the 
wine  into  the  preexisting  blood.3  To  escape  this  con- 
clusion the  Roman  Catholic  dogmatist  would  need  the 
hardihood  to  impute  to  the  council  a  loose  use  of  lan- 
guage. In  other  words,  he  must  make  bold  to  say  that 
the  Tridentine  fathers  spoke  of  the  conversion  of  one 
substance  into  another  when  they  really  meant  something 
else.  Virtually,  if  not  formally,  this  has  been  done  by 
some  who  have  preferred  to  think  rather  of  annihilation 
and  substitution  than  of  conversion  of  substance.  But 
naturally  Roman  Catholic  theologians,  with  their  un- 


1  Sess.  xiii,  can.  2.  *  Pars  ii,  cap.  iv.  37,  41. 

1  Bellarmine  leaves  no  doubt  as  to  his  understanding  of  the  Tridentine 
teaching.  He  says :  Non  enim  panis  convertitur  in  praesentiam  corporis 
domini,  sed  in  ipsum  corpus  dommi  (De  Sac.  Eucharist.,  lib.  iii,  cap.  18). 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  241 

measured  respect  for  dogmatic  precedent,  have  generally 
felt  themselves  debarred  from  taking  that  alternative. 
Moreover,  in  the  most  recent  times  the  powerful  in- 
fluence which  has  been  used  in  favor  of  the  authority  of 
Thomas  Aquinas  has  tended  to  hold  theological  opinion 
to  the  natural  sense  of  the  Tridentine  formula.  For 
Aquinas  in  very  unmistakable  terms  ruled  out  the  notion 
of  annihilation  from  the  interpretation  of  the  eucharistic 
mystery,  and  asserted  conversion  of  the  substance  of 
bread  and  wine  into  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ.1 
There  is  very  little  hazard,  then,  in  saying  that  Roman^ 
Catholic  teaching  is  anchored  to  the  doctrine  of  conver- 
sion of  substance  as  opposed  to  the  theory  of  annihilation 
and  replacement. 

Expression  is  given  to  the  doctrine  in  question  by 
Scheeben.  While  granting  that  the  retirement  of  the 
substance  of  bread  and  wine  bears  a  certain  analogy  to 
annihilation,  he  says:  "As  respects  the  mode  of  its 
genesis  transubstantiation  cannot  be  interpreted  as  anni- 
hilation of  the  substance  of  bread  and  wine  conjoined 
with  substitution  of  the  substance  of  the  flesh  and  blood 
of  Christ;  for  the  cessation  of  the  former  substance  is 
not  directed  to  pure  nothingness,  but  to  the  presence  of 
the  flesh  and  blood  of  Christ  under  the  visible  forms;  it 
results  also  not  from  a  withdrawing  of  the  upholding  of 
God,  but  from  the  positive  working  of  the  transforma- 
tion."2 "It  is  the  general  custom,"  remarks  Heinrich, 
"to  define  the  transformation  as  the  passing  over  of  one 
thing  into  another,  'transitus  unius  rei  in  aliam.' '  He 

1  Summa  Theol.,  Pars  III,  quaest.  75,  art.  3.  Cum  per  conversione  et  non 
alio  modp  corpus  Christi  in  eucharistia  esse  incipiat,  post  consecrationem 
substantia  panis  vel  vini  non  resolvitur  in  praejacentem  materiam,  nee 
annihilatur,  sed  convertitur  in  verum  Christi  corpus. 

3  Handbuch,  IV.  597. 


242  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

notices  that  the  opposing  supposition,  according  to  which 
the  substance  of  the  bread  and  wine  is  annihilated  and 
the  body  and  blood  of  Christ  are  adduced  in  its  place, 
has  had  some  currency,  but  pronounces  it  inadequate  to 
the  proper  notion  of  conversion.1  Sasse  refers  approv- 
ingly to  the  exposition  of  Aquinas,  and  offers  this  defini- 
tion: "The  eucharistic  conversion  is  a  conversion  of 
the  whole  substance  of  bread  into  the  body  and  of  the 
whole  substance  of  wine  into  the  blood  of  Christ,  which 
properly  and  most  aptly  is  called  transubstantiation. 
Conversion  is  the  transition  of  one  thing  into  another."2 
An  equivalent  definition  is  given  by  Hurter,  who  further 
says,  in  conformity  with  the  view  of  Aquinas:  "As  re- 
spects the  substance  of  the  bread,  though  it  ceases  alto- 
gether to  be,  nevertheless  it  cannot  be  said  to  be  anni- 
hilated."3 Billot  contends  that  the  annihilation  theory 
is  contradictory  to  the  Tridentine  doctrine  of  conversion 
of  substance.  He  maintains  also  that  it  is  discordant 
with  common  linguistic  usage.  "Conversion  excludes 
annihilation,  and  annihilation  conversion.  Annihilation 
is  the  opposite  of  creation,  the  reduction  of  a  thing  to 
nothing.  But  conversion  is  the  change  of  one  thing  into 
another."4 

As  conciliar  decisions  and  the  general  consensus  of 
theologians  bind  Roman  Catholic  conviction  to  the  doc- 
trine of  the  conversion  of  one  substance  into  another  pre- 
existing substance,  so  also  do  they  require  belief  in  the 
actual  separation  of  accidents  or  attributes  from  sub- 
stance, and  in  the  real  existence  of  the  accidents  or  at- 
tributes thus  separated.  We  say  accidents  or  attributes; 

1  Lehrbuch,  pp.  668,  679.  2  Inst.  Theol.  de  Sacramentis,  I.  378,  379. 

1  Theol.  Dogmat.  Compend.,  III.  336,  347 
4  De  Eccl.  Sacramentis,  I.  34sff. 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  243 

for,  while  the  former  word  is  commonly  used  in  the 
eucharistic  terminology  of  Romanism,  it  covers  all  the 
known  attributes  of  bread  (or  wine)  ;  indeed,  the  plain 
implication  is  that  it  covers  absolutely  all  the  attributes 
of  this  substance,  since  it  is  the  substance  which  is  said 
to  be  converted,  and  no  pretense  is  made  that  any  possible 
investigation  would  find  what  is  left  behind  destitute  of 
a  single  power  which  belonged  to  the  bread  prior  to  con- 
version. In  other  words,  the  opposition  between  sub- 
stance and  accidents  is  just  simply  an  opposition  between 
a  predicateless  ground  and  the  whole  sum  of  predicates 
connected  in  the  natural  order  with  that  ground.  By  the 
diremption  effected  in  the  act  of  transubstantiation  bare 
substance  is  removed  and  converted,  and  everything  else 
is  left  intact.  This  is  the  meaning  which  the  standard 
discussions  authorize  us  to  attach  to  that  act,  though, 
of  course,  there  is  no  great  occasion  to  emphasize  the 
fact,  since  in  a  rational  point  of  view  the  diremption  and 
separate  existence  of  a  part  of  the  attributes  of  a  sub- 
stance involve  essentially  the  same  difficulties  as  the 
diremption  and  separate  existence  of  all  the  attributes. 

As  respects  the  conciliar  verdict  on  the  point  in  ques- 
tion, it  was  given  in  unambiguous  form  by  the  Council 
of  Constance  in  the  condemnation  of  these  Wycliffite 
propositions:  "The  natural  substance  of  bread  and 
similarly  the  natural  substance  of  wine  remain  in  the 
sacrament  of  the  altar.  The  accidents  of  bread  do  not 
remain  without  a  subject  in  the  same  sacrament."  The 
condemnation  visited  upon  these  propositions  was,  as  all 
parties  admit,  confirmed  by  Pope  Martin  V.  Accord- 
ingly, an  ecumenical  and  reputedly  infallible  decision 
stands  on  the  side  of  the  conclusion  that  the  accidents  of 


244  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

the  eucharistic  bread  exist  without  a  subject  after  the 
conversion  of  the  substance.  The  Council  of  Trent  is 
to  be  regarded  as  reaffirming,  at  least  incidentally,  this 
decision,  since  the  "species"  which  it  represents  as  re- 
maining after  the  conversion  of  substance  denote  in  cus- 
tomary Roman  usage  the  same  thing  as  the  accidents 
referred  to  by  the  Council  of  Constance.  Prior  to  both 
councils  the  authority  of  Aquinas  had  been  given  with 
perfect  definiteness  in  favor  of  the  view  of  the  separate 
existence  of  the  accidents.  "The  accidents  of  bread  and 
wine  in  the  sacrament,"  he  wrote,  "do  not  remain  ex- 
isting in  any  subject;  but  they  exist  solely  by  divine 
power  without  subject."1 

To  overcome  so  great  a  weight  of  authority  would 
require  an  extraordinary  counterpoise.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  nothing  like  an  adequate  offset  has  been  furnished. 
Some  theologians,  it  is  true,  have  thought  it  admissible 
to  regard  the  so-called  accidents  or  species  remaining 
after  conversion  of  substance  as  rather  divinely  wrought 
subjective  appearances  than  objective  entities  of  any  sort. 
But  this  view  seems  not  to  have  been  able  to  command 
so  much  as  tolerance.  "At  various  times  it  has  been 
condemned  by  the  Roman  congregations."2  Most  of  the 
theologians  who  have  been  cited  above  on  the  subject  of 
the  eucharist  treat  the  given  view  as  distinctly  inadmissi- 
ble, and  resolutely  advocate  the  theory  of  Aquinas.  Thus 
Heinrich  describes  the  eucharistic  accidents  as  real  ob- 
jectively existing  accidents  sustained  by  divine  omnipo- 
tence apart  from  inherence  in  any  substance.3  "The  sac- 
ramental species,"  says  Sasse,  "are  not  mere  modifica- 

1  Summa  Theol.,  Pars  III,  quaest.  72,  art.  3. 

1  A.  Schmid,  article  "Altarssacrament"  in  Kirchenlexicon  of  Wetzer  and 
Welte.  »  Lehrbuch,  pp.  680,  681. 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  245 

tions  immediately  produced  by  God  in  our  senses  or  in 
adjacent  bodies,  but  true  accidents,  physical  realities,  re- 
maining from  bread  and  wine."1  Hurter  contends  for 
the  real  objective  existence  of  the  accidents  after  the 
retirement  of  the  substance  of  the  eucharistic  elements, 
and  affirms  that  since  the  Councils  of  Constance  and 
Trent  the  weightier  theologians  have  rated  this  view  as 
pertaining  to  the  faith.2  Billot  takes  identical  ground, 
and  cites  from  a  number  of  post-Tridentine  theologians 
the  opinion  that  the  real  existence  of  the  accidents  apart 
from  a  subject  must  be  ranked  as  belonging  to  the  domain 
of  certified  truth  or  dogma.3 

We  contemplate,  then,  according  to  the  orthodox 
Roman  teaching,  accidents  or  attributes  torn  apart  from 
substance  and  existing  without  any  natural  base  when 
we  give  attention  to  the  earthly  factor  in  the  eucharist. 
What  is  offered  to  our  contemplation  when  we  take 
notice  of  the  other  factor,  the  body  of  Christ  present 
under  the  species?  In  the  heavenly  sphere,  as  every 
Roman  dogmatist  will  confess,  this  body  has  all  the 
characteristics  which  pertain  to  the  ideal  of  manly  form 
and  stature.  Now,  the  whole  Christ  is  asserted  to  be  in. 
the  consecrated  wafer,  and  in  every  separated  portion 
thereof,  even  though  it  be  as  small  as  a  needle's  point. 
The  inquiry,  then,  necessarily  arises  as  to  what  has  be- 
come of  the  characteristics — the  accidents  or  attributes — 
which  belong  normally  to  the  body  of  Christ.  Has  a 
diremption  also  taken  place  here  between  substance  and 
accidents  ?  No,  say  the  dogmatists ;  but  they  offer  a  full 
equivalent  for  that  violent  supposition.  They  assume 

1  Inst.  Theol.  de  Sacramentis,  I.  420. 

*  Theol.  Dogmat.  Compend.,  III.  354-356. 

'  De  Eccl.  Sacramentis,  I.  4i?ff. 


246  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

that  a  body  can  exist  in  the  same  indivisible  instant  in 
contrary  modes — exist,  that  is,  as  an  extended  entity  in 
heaven  and  at  the  same  time  upon  earth  as  a  subject  to 
which  the  notion  of  extension  is  essentially  foreign. 
They  as  good  as  strip  off  from  the  body  present  in  the 
eucharist  all  the  corporeal  attributes  of  which  we  have 
the  slightest  conception.  Formally,  indeed,  the  nexus 
between  these  attributes  and  the  bodily  substance  is  not 
declared  to  be  severed,  but  practically  it  is  cut  asunder, 
and  an  interval  as  wide  as  that  which  parts  earth  from 
heaven  is  interposed  between  the  two  terms. 

/"  Such  an  eccentric  dogma,  which  utterly  confounds  the 
/senses  and  puts  reason  on  the  rack  in  the  vain  struggle  to 
/  construe  its  possibility,  ought  certainly,  in  order  to  have 
any  claim  upon  faith,  to  be  solidly  based  in  the  Scrip- 
1    tures.     But  the  fact  is  quite  the  reverse.     In  the  Synop- 
\  tical  Gospels  we  have  the  words  of  institution.    They  are 
just  the  words  which  Christ  would  naturally  have  em- 
ployed if  he  had  meant  to  institute  a  simple  memorial 
rite,  in  which  bread  and  wine  should  be  employed  to 
.  symbolize  the  body  given  up  and  the  blood  poured  out 
in  the  sacrificial  death  upon  the  cross.     He  inclined  to 
vivid  condensed  speech,  to  speech  replete  with  metaphor. 
It  would  not  have  been  like  him  to  say  to  the  disciples, 
"Your  office  in  the  world  can  be  symbolized  appropriately 
by  light  and  salt."     Much  rather  it  suited  his  energetic 
way  of  speaking  to  say,  "Ye  are  the  light  of  the  world ; 
ye  are  the  salt  of  the  earth."    So  it  would  not  have  been 
like  him  to  say  at  the  last  supper,  "This  bread  symbolizes 
my  body  given  for  you,  and  this  wine  symbolizes  my 
blood  shed  for  you."    Much  more  accordant  was  it  with 


THE   SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  247 

his  vivid  style  of  speech  to  say,  as  he  set  the  elements 
before  his  disciples,  "This  is  my  body;  this  is  my  blood." 
For  that  company,  who  had  listened  to  his  parables  and 
knew  well  his  dialect,  the  given  form  of  words  involved 
no  danger  of  mistaken  interpretation.  There  was  no 
hazard  at  all  that  any  one  of  them  would  have  his  brain 
set  to  reeling  by  an  attempt  to  figure  how  the  body  of 
Christ  could  be  at  the  same  instant  intact  before  the 
company,  in  the  hand  or  mouth  of  each  disciple,  serving 
as  an  instrument  of  discourse  while  in  its  entirety  it 
was  being  eaten  by  each,  and  being  even  capable  of  being 
eaten  by  the  Master  himself,  so  that  the  same  subject 
should  be  at  once  the  eater  and  the  eaten.  Nothing  could 
be  more  gratuitously  unhistoric  than  the  supposition  that 
those  companions  of  Jesus  were  conscious  of  any  occa- 
sion for  such  dumfounding  cogitations.  The  symbolism 
of  their  Master's  words  was  transparent  to  them,  and 
apart  from  an  inheritance  of  exaggerated  and  artificial 
conceptions  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  not  be  so  to 
us.  The  Synoptical  Gospels,  then,  yield  absolutely  noth- 
ing in  favor  of  the  dogma  of  transubstantiation  except 
as  it  is  arbitrarily  read  into  them. 

Scarcely  better  is  the  basis  for  the  dogma  which  can 
be  drawn  from  the  Gospel  of  John.  The  sixth  chapter 
speaks,  indeed,  of  eating  the  flesh  and  drinking  the  blood 
of  the  Son  of  man.  But  this  is  the  language  of  mystical 
discourse,  as  unmistakably  parabolic  in  intent  as  the 
kindred  discourse  in  the  same  Gospel  on  the  vine  and 
the  branches.  No  less  than  four  things  advertise  how 
far  away  it  is  from  the  plane  of  literalism.  In  the  first 
place,  precisely  the  same  benefits  are  ascribed  in  the  first 
part  of  the  chapter  to  the  exercise  of  faith  in  Christ  as 


248  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

subsequently  are  attributed  to  eating  and  drinking,  a  fact 
which  serves  to  indicate  that  the  latter  terms  were  used 
as  a  striking  figurative  description  of  the  spiritual  appro- 
priation of  Christ  as  the  impersonation  of  truth  and 
source  of  true  life.  As  Augustine  observed,  "To  believe  ] 
on  the  Lord  is  to  eat  the  living  bread."1  In  the  second-/ 
place,  an  indication  is  given  that  the  eating  and  drinking 
denote  a  spiritual  function  through  the  absence  of  any 
qualifying  statement,  any  condition  as  to  the  saving  re- 
sult. A  literal  eating  might  be  worthy  or  unworthy, 
and  in  the  latter  event  would  earn  only  condemnation. 
That  participation  in  a  higher  life  flows  unconditionally 
from  the  stated  condition  is  evidence  that  the  condition 
is  in  the  spiritual  order;  in  other  words,  that  eating  and 
drinking  in  this  connection  are  equivalent  to  an  inner 
appropriation  of  Christ  for  the  satisfying  of  the  soul's 
hunger  and  thirst.  Again,  a  safeguard  against  a  literal- 
istic  interpretation  is  provided  by  the  representation  that 
the  living  bread  which  the  Son  of  man  is  to  give  for  the 
life  of  the  world  came  down  from  heaven.  This  could 
not  be  said  of  his  actual  bodily  substance,  which  no  more 
came  down  from  heaven  than  did  that  of  anyone  in  the 
multitude  addressed.  The  stress  is  thus  placed  upon  the 
heavenly  personality,  the  spiritual  factor  in  the  Christ, 
and  a  hint  is  given  that  the  effectual  source  of  true  life 
is  there  and  not  in  the  literal  reception  of  any  physical 
aliment.  Finally,  the  hint  thus  supplied  was  clarified  and 
enlarged  into  a  formal  repudiation  of  a  materialistic  in- 
terpretation of  the  recorded  discourse  in  the  grand  dec- 
laration: "It  is  the  spirit  that  quickeneth;  the  flesh 
profiteth  nothing :  the  words  that  I  have  spoken  unto  you 

1  Tract,  in  Joan.,  xxvi.  i. 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  249 

are  spirit,  and  are  life."  With  this  ending  the  Johannine 
parable  becomes  not  so  much  a  legitimate  basis  for  the 
dogma  of  transubstantiation  as  a  rebuke  beforehand  to 
the  whole  range  of  ideas  which  provides  a  standing- 
ground  for  that  dogma. 

After  the  Synoptists  and  John  only  one  other  biblical 
writer  remains  to  be  examined,  namely,  the  author  of  the 
First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians.  It  has  been  alleged  thats 
if  Paul  had  not  believed  in  the  transubstantiation  of  the 
eucharistic  elements  he  would  not  have  charged  those 
who  partook  unworthily  of  being  guilty  of  the  body  and; 
blood  of  Christ.  The  allegation,  however,  is  quite  base- 
less. To  treat  the  flag  of  a  nation  with  disrespect  is  to 
do  despite  to  the  nation.  So  to  treat  irreverently  the 
emblems  of  the  Redeemer  who  gave  himself  in  holy  sac- 
rifice is  practically  to  contemn  that  sacrifice  and  to  do 
despite  to  the  body  that  was  pierced  and  to  the  blood  that 
was  shed.  Again,  it  is  claimed  that  Paul  in  speaking  of 
the  communion  of  the  body  of  Christ  has  given  counte- 
nance to  the  supposition  of  transubstantiation.  But  this 
is  an  entirely  gratuitous  inference.  Paul  could  have  used 
the  given  expression  with  full  warrant  if  his  reference 
had  been  simply  to  the  body  symbolized  by  the  bread 
and  apprehended  in  spiritual  contemplation  as  that 
which  had  been  pierced  for  the  sins  of  men.  Indeed,  he 
has  intimated  with  sufficient  clearness  that  such  was  his 
reference  in  identifying  that  which  is  eaten  in  the  eucha- 
ristic rite  with  bread.  "The  bread  which  we  break,"  he 
asks,  "is  it  not  a  communion  of  the  body  of  Christ  ?  See- 
ing that  we,  who  are  many,  are  one  bread,  one  body: 
for  we  all  partake  of  the  one  bread."  (i  Cor.  x.  16,  17.) 

Having  so  trivial  a  ground  in  Scripture,  the  doctrine 


250  THE   ROMAN    TYPE 

of  transubstantiation  is  exposed  to  the  full  force  of  the 
rational  objections  which  assail  its  credibility.  Its 
primary  assumption,  as  set  forth  by  conciliar  authority 
and  asserted  in  the  theological  consensus,  is  quite  be- 
yond, not  to  say  beneath,  intelligent  apprehension.  Con- 
version of  one  thing  into  another  already  existing  thing 
is  not  properly  thinkable.  Supposing  an  orange  and  an 
apple  to  lie  upon  the  table  before  us,  and  that  divine 
power  is  capable  of  transforming  the  apple  into  an 
orange,  the  wonderful  metamorphosis  would  give  us  a 
second  orange.  To  assume  the  transformation  of  the 
apple  into  the  preexisting  orange  without  any  addition  to 
the  latter  is  equivalent  to  assuming  that  i-j-i=i.  So 
defiance  is  paid  to  mathematics  by  the  orthodox  doctrine 
of  transubstantiation.  Bread  is  said  in  any  number  of 
instances  to  be  converted  into  the  body  of  Christ  while 
yet  that  body  remains  just  what  it  was  before,  receiving 
no  increment  whatever  from  the  converted  substance  on 
thousands  and  thousands  of  altars.  Probably  it  was  the 
inability  of  Rosmini  to  make  his  way  through  the  mathe- 
matical puzzle  involved  in  the  traditional  view,  which 
led  him  to  conclude  that  the  substance  of  the  bread,  in- 
stead of  being  converted  immediately  and  unqualifiedly 
into  the  body  of  Christ,  is  converted  into  a  kind  of 
heavenly  nutriment  which  becomes  identified  with  the 
Redeemer's  body  by  assimilation.  This  shift  of  the 
philosopher  may  not  have  been  particularly  eligible.  In 
condemning  it,  however,  the  Inquisition  and  the  pope 
only  served  to  strengthen  the  demand  for  a  perpetual 
feud  with  rational  thinking.1 

1  For  the  text  of  the  condemned  Rosminian  propositions,  as  also  for  the 
related  passages,  see  Billia,  Quaranta  Proposizione  Attribuite  ad  Antonio 
Rosmini ,  pp.  376ff. 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  251 

The  second  offense  of  the  transubstantiation  dogma 
against  the  demands  of  sane  intelligence  is  like  unto  the 
first.  It  is  a  very  curious  philosophy  which  supposes  that 
substance  and  attributes  are  so  artificially  related  that 
the  former  can  be  taken  away  and  the  latter  be  left. 
Every  concrete  entity  must  have  particular  modes  of 
subsistence.  A  particular  thing  is  such  only  by  virtue 
of  particular  ways  of  acting  and  being  acted  upon. 
Now,  accidents  or  attributes  name  these  particular  modes 
of  subsistence  or  powers  of  action.  To  take  them  away, 
therefore,  and  to  suppose  the  substance  to  remain  is  to 
suppose  that  a  particular  thing  can  subsist  without  sub- 
sisting in  any  particular  mode.  That  is  too  great  a  con- 
tradiction to  be  wrought  by  any  sort  of  power.  The  pred- 
icateless  substance  is  not  and  cannot  be  any  part  of  the 
sphere  of  reality.  It  is  a  mere  abstraction.  Bread 
robbed  of  its  predicates  is  a  nonentity,  and  consequently 
no  subject  for  conversion  into  anything.  On  the  other 
side,  particular  modes  cannot  subsist  without  being  the 
modes  of  some  particular  thing.  If  the  substance  of  the 
eucharistic  bread  disappears,  the  accidents  must  vanish 
also,  otherwise  there  could  be  modes  of  being  without  a 
being.  Divine  power  might  conceivably  produce  a  coun- 
terfeit of  the  vanished  accidents,  but  no  amount  of  power 
can  separate  the  inseparable  or  make  the  different  iden- 
tical. The  appearances  wrought  by  divine  intervention 
would  be  merely  a  substitute  for  the  real  accidents  once 
pertaining  to  the  bread  substance. 

The  validity  of  the  foregoing  criticism,  it  may  be 
observed,  is  not  dependent  upon  a  precise  determination 
of  the  ultimate  philosophical  signification  of  the  term 
"substance."  It  rests  on  the  rational  consideration  that 


252  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

in  a  given  thing  a  diremption  cannot  be  made  between 
ground  and  characteristics  without  negating  both  the  one 
and  the  other.  Let  the  ground  of  the  eucharistic  wafer, 
if  you  please,  be  simply  a  divine  energizing.  It  takes  a 
specific  form  of  the  divine  energizing  to  produce  just 
the  wafer  with  its  complex  of  recognizable  character- 
istics. The  energizing  being  the  same,  the  same  charac- 
teristics will  result;  othenvise  the  characteristics  must 
be  rated  as  fortuitous.  If,  then,  the  energizing  is  sup- 
posed to  be  isolated  from  the  characteristics,  or  not  to 
be  productive  of  them,  it  is  supposed  not  to  be  the  same. 
Moreover,  on  this  supposition,  the  characteristics  have  no 
intelligible  ground  of  continuance,  and  the  most  that  can 
be  thought  of,  if  an  appearance  of  them  is  to  be  kept  up, 
is  a  second  specific  energizing  which  shall  duplicate  the 
results  of  the  first,  in  other  words,  effect  a  wafer  like 
the  one  with  which  we  started.  Thus  no  intelligible 
basis  for  the  Roman  dogma  is  furnished  by  the  given 
conception  of  ground  or  substance ;  and  we  hazard  noth- 
ing in  asserting  that  no  basis  can  be  found  in  any  other 
conception  which  modern  philosophy  will  consent  to  rate 
as  tolerable. 

The  strange  capabilities  ascribed  by  the  expositors  of 
transubstantiation  to  the  body  of  Christ,  as  resident 
under  the  species  of  the  eucharistic  bread,  invite  to  com- 
ment. But  there  is  small  demand  to  follow  these  ex- 
positors into  the  details  of  their  representations,  or  to 
occupy  space  in  any  attempt  at  refutation.  The  body 
with  which  they  deal  is  a  purely  notional  subject,  free 
from  all  the  restrictions  which  belong  to  things  in  the 
sphere  of  corporeal  reality,  and  consequently  perfectly 
responsive  to  any  demands  which  it  may  be  convenient 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  353 

for  ecclesiastical  dogma  to  impose.  Does  it  suit  the 
dogmatic  demand  to  have  a  body  so  very  peculiar  that 
it  can  be  in  its  entirety  in  the  most  infinitesimal  space, 
then  the  purely  notional  subject  readily  takes  this  char- 
acteristic. Must  the  body  present  in  the  eucharist  be 
at  the  same  time  in  the  heavenly  sphere  and  also  upon 
ten  thousand  altars  distributed  through  the  world,  then 
the  notional  subject,  as  being  capable  of  anything  and 
everything  that  is  wanted,  makes  no  delay  to  respond 
to  this  requirement.  Furthermore,  it  lends  itself  per- 
fectly to  the  demand  that  in  its  entirety  it  should  be  able 
to  move,  or  at  least  to  make  a  change  of  location,  in  all 
directions  at  the  same  instant.  No  matter  how  difficult 
the  feat  assigned  by  the  dogmatic  authorities  may  be, 
this  marvelous  subject  is  completely  furnished  for  its 
execution;  and  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  not  be, 
since  it  is  a  purely  notional  subject,  reached  by  no  induc- 
tion from  the  sphere  of  known  reality,  and  opposing, 
therefore,  not  the  slightest  resistance  to  being  endowed 
with  any  capability  which  the  theological  imagination  or 
the  dogmatic  interest  may  call  for.  A  second  subject  so 
convenient  and  accommodating  was  probably  never  heard 
of  in  all  the  universe.  But,  of  course,  what  apologists 
and  dogmatists  say  respecting  this  notional  subject 
proves  nothing,  except  their  sense  of  the  exorbitant  de- 
mands of  the  dogma  of  transubstantiation.  One  who  is 
not  already  in  the  attitude  of  implicit  faith  will  listen  to 
their  declarations  with  much  the  same  incredulity  which 
he  would  oppose  to  the  man  who  should  make  the  dec- 
laration that  he  carries  the  sun  in  his  pocket.  This  man, 
it  is  true,  were  he  well  read  in  treatises  on  the  eucharistic 
mystery,  would  not  be  wholly  destitute  of  means  of  de- 


354  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

fense.  Should  you  say  to  him,  "My  dear  sir,  the  sun 
cannot  be  in  your  pocket,  for  there  it  is  shining  brightly 
in  the  sky,"  he  could  respond,  "You  should  know  that 
you  see  only  the  accidents  of  the  sun  up  there  in  the 
firmament,  and  should  not  be  so  rash  as  to  infer  that  the 
sun  in  his  substantial  being  must  be  conjoined  with  the 
accidents."  Again,  should  you  say  to  the  man  in  ques- 
tion, "The  sun  is  a  great  blazing  orb,  immensely  larger 
than  the  earth,  and  could  not  possibly  be  contained  in 
your  pocket,"  he  could  answer,  "The  sun  is  in  my  pocket 
in  the  way  of  substance,  or  after  the  mode  of  spirit,  and 
the  quantitative  category  does  not  apply  in  that  range 
as  it  does  in  the  phenomenal  sphere."  And  so  the  man 
professing  to  have  pocketed  the  sun  might  go  on  answer- 
ing your  objections.  But  he  would  make  no  progress 
toward  convincing  you  of  the  truth  of  his  proposition. 
You  would  observe  that  he  was  playing  with  makeshift 
notions,  and  was  not  offering  you  a  scrap  of  induction 
from  the  sphere  of  reality. 

With  all  the  rest,  the  self -cancel  ing  character  of  the 
eucharistic  dogma,  as  authoritatively  formulated  in 
Roman  Catholicism,  offers  a  ground  of  legitimate 
criticism.  The  dogma  insists  that  the  present  body  of 
Christ  is  truly  eaten.  We  read  in  the  decrees  of  the 

1  Council  of  Trent:  "If  anyone  saith  that  Christ,  given 
in  the  eucharist,  is  eaten  spiritually  only,  and  not  also 
sacramentally  and  really:  let  him  be  anathema."  But 
what  kind  of  eating  can  there  be  where  no  division  or 
assimilation  of  substance  occurs?  Who  can  frame  the 
least  idea  of  what  is  meant  by  the  eating  of  a  thing  so 
perfectly  absolved  as  is  the  body  of  Christ  from  the 
ordinary  spatial  characteristics  and  limitations  of  cor- 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  255 

poreal  entities?  The  truth  is,  that  in  order  to  secure 
the  presence  of  the  body  of  Christ,  and  to  safeguard  it 
against  maltreatment,  the  dogmatists  have  been  obliged 
to  turn  it  into  a  notional  subject,  to  the  eating  of  which 
no  consistent  meaning  can  be  attached. 

The  objections   to  transubstantiation   are  such   that 
they  could  not  be  counterbalanced,  to  an  appreciable  de- 
gree, by  any  amount  of  patristic  testimony.    As  respects 
the  actual  import  of  that  testimony  it  will  suffice  to  note 
the  following  facts :    ( i )  Many  of  the  fathers  were  quite\ 
fervid  rhetoricians.     As  they  were  not  careful  to  keep   [ 
within  the  bounds  of  sober  discourse  on  other  themes,  I 
they  might  be  expected,  on  a  subject  making  so  strong  \ 
an  appeal  to  religious  emotion  as  does  that  of  the  eucha- 
rist,  to  use  sometimes  a  style  of  speech  that  mounte^ 
above  the  level  of  deliberate  judgment.     (2)  At  a  c 
paratively  early  date  in  the  history  of  the  post-apostolic 
Church  there  was  a  development  in  the  direction  of  what 
might  be  termed   institutional   mysticism,   a  movement 
toward  an  exaggerated  conception  of  ecclesiastical  offices  ^. 
and  rites  which  tended  more  or  less  to  compromise  the 
simplicity  and  the  emphatically  ethical  character  of  orig- 
inal Christianity.     Such  a  development  naturally  worked 
toward  supplying  a  basis  for  the  doctrine  of  transubstan- 
tiation.    But  this  is  far  from  saying  that  in  its  earlier 
stages  it  actually  introduced  the  doctrine  known  by  that 
title.     (3)   A  due  rating  of  the  vague  mysticism  with 
which  the  contemplation  of  the  eucharistic  rite  was  en- 
veloped may  properly  deter  one  from  putting  into  the 
terms  employed  the  proper  sense  of  later  dogmatics.     It 
is  not  to  be  presumed  as  a  matter  of  course  that  when  the 
fathers  spoke  of  the  body  of  Christ  as  present  in  the  sac- 


256  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

rament  they  meant  either  the  emblematic  body  or  the  real 
body  born  of  the  Virgin.  Indeed,  there  is  good  ground 
for  concluding  that  many  of  them  meant  neither  the 
one  nor  the  other,  but  a  mystical  power  or  virtue  flowing 
from  the  presence  and  operation  of  the  Logos.  Speaking 
of  the  post-Nicene  era,  Gieseler  says :  "It  was  the  dom- 
inant teaching  at  this  time  concerning  the  elements  of  the 
eucharist,  that  the  Logos  so  unites  himself  with  them  as 
he  did  once  with  humanity,  and  that  they  receive  thereby 
a  divine  power,  and  to  this  extent  undergo  an  inner 
change  and  transformation.  As  related  to  the  body  and 
blood  which  Christ  assumed  in  his  incarnation,  bread  and 
wine  were  pronounced  mere  images  and  signs."1  Re- 
ferring to  a  type  of  realism  which  many  of  the  fathers 
represented,  Harnack  writes:  "They  are  'symbolists'  in 
respect  of  the  real  presence  of  the  true  body;  indeed,  as 
regards  this  they  are  in  a  way  not  even  symbolists,  since 
they  had  not  that  body  in  their  minds  at  all.  But  they 
know  of  a  mystical  body  of  Christ  which  is  for  them 
absolutely  real — it  is  spirit,  life,  immortality,  and  they 
transferred  this  as  real  to  the  celebration  of  the  supper."2 

f  (4)  As  respects  the  ante-Nicene  fathers,  though  it  is 
clear  that  some  of  them  went  beyond  the  purely  sym- 
bolical view,  it  is  not  proved,  or  even  made  credible,  that 

\     any  of  them  were  advocates  of  the  proper  dogma  of  tran- 

V  substantiation.3     (5)  Several  of  the  fathers  who  wrote 

after  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century  used  language 


1  Dogmengeschichte,  p.  411. 

1  History  of  Dogma,  Eng.  trans.,  IV.  291,  292. 

'See  Justin,  i  Apol.,  Ixvi;  Irenaeus,  Cont.  Haer.,  iv.  18.  4,  v.  a.  3;  Ter- 
tullian,  Adv.  Marcion,  iii.  19,  iv.  40;  De  Resur.  Cam.,  viii;  De  Pud.,  ix; 
De  Orat.,  vi;  Cyprian,  Epist.  Ixii;  Clement  of  Alexandria,  Psed.,  i.  6,  ii.  2; 
Strom.,  v.  10;  Origen,  Comm.  in  Matt.  Series,  Ixxxv;  In  Gen.,  Horn.  x.  3: 
In  Ex.,  Horn.  vii.  8;  In  Lev.,  Horn.  vii.  5;  In  Num.,  Horn.  xvi.  9;  In  Matt 
xi.  14;  Cont.  Celsum,  viii.  33. 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  257 

which  can  be  understood  in  a  sense  closely  allied  with 
the  theory  of  transubstantiation ;  but  others  used  lan- 
guage quite  incompatible  with  that  theory.  Sentences 
can  easily  be  selected  from  the  most  illustrious  repre- 
sentatives of  the  epoch  which  seem  to  be  exposed  to  the 
Tridentine  anathemas.1 


IV. — JUDICIAL  ABSOLUTION  IN  THE  SACRAMENT  OF 
PENANCE 

According  to  the  very  full  specifications  of  the  Council  \ 
of  Trent,  the  sacrament  of  penance  is  for  those  who  have  '-\ 

.  ,  lirT1jijmi»ia»»~i' — 

fallen  after  baptism  into  any  mortal  or  serious  transgres-  * 
sion,  necessary  unto  salvation.  The  form  of  the  sacra^ 
ment  lies  in  the  words  of  the  minister,  "I  absolve  thee." 
The  matter  of  the  sacrament  consists  in  three  acts  of  the 
penitent,  namely,  contrition,  confession,  and  satisfaction. 
A  perfect  contrition  is  able  to  reconcile  to  God  in  advance 
of  the  sacrament,  but  not  independently  of  a  desire  there- 
for. The  imperfect  contrition  called  attrition,  which 
springs  from  such  motives  as  the  fear  of  hell  or  a  sense 
of  the  turpitude  of  sin,  cannot  secure  justification  apart 
from  the  sacrament,  but  nevertheless,  if  it  is  attended 
with  the  will  not  to  sin,  it  disposes  the  penitent  to  ob- 
tain the  grace  of  God  in  the  sacrament.  The  confession 
to  which  the  penitent  is  obligated  is  of  divine  right  neces- 
sary to  all  who  have  fallen  after  baptism,  and  must  cover 
all  mortal  sins  that  a  diligent  self-examination  can  bring 
to  remembrance.  The  satisfactions  which  the  candidate 

1  See  Eusebius  of  Caesarea,  Dem.  Evang.,  i.  10;  De  Eccl.  Theol.,  iii.  12; 
Athanasius,  Epist.  ad  Serapion,  iv.  19;  Basil,  Epist.  viii.  4;  Theodoret, 
Dial.,  i,  ii;  Augustine,  Tract,  in  Joan.,  xxvi,  xxvii;  Epist.  xcviii  (ad  Boni- 
facium);  De  Trin.,  iii.  10;  Cont.  Adimant.,  xii.  3;  Cont.  Faust.,  xx.  13; 
In  Psalm.,  iii.  i,  xcviii.  9;  Serm.  Ixxxi;  De  Civ.  Dei,  xxi.  35. 


258  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

must  engage  to  fulfill  (but  which  ordinarily  are  dis- 
charged after  the  absolving  sentence)  are  due  to  divine 
justice  and  work  toward  the  canceling  of  the  temporal 
penalties  which  still  remain  after  sin  has  been  pardoned 
as  respects  the  principal  or  eternal  penalty.  These  satis- 
factions consist  in  such  works  of  piety  as  fastings, 
prayers,  almsdeeds,  as  also  in  the  patient  endurance  of 
providential  inflictions.  The  opinion  that  "the  best 
penance  is  merely  a  new  life"  the  council  disallowed  and 
even  anathematized  (canon  xiii).  On  the  judicial  char- 
acter of  the  absolving  sentence  of  the  priest  the  Triden- 
tine  decree  employs  the  following  language:  "Although 
the  absolution  of  the  priest  is  the  dispensation  of  another's 
bounty,  yet  it  is  not  a  bare  ministry  only,  whether  of 
announcing  the  gospel,  or  of  declaring  that  sins  are  for- 
given, but  is  after  the  manner  of  a  judicial  act,  whereby 
sentence  is  pronounced  by  the  priest  as  by  a  judge."1 

On  most  of  these  points  it  would  be  superfluous  to 
cite  the  judgments  of  recent  theologians.  Their  words 
are  little  more  than  echoes  of  the  authoritative  decisions 
of  the  council.  Occasionally  a  Roman  Catholic  writer 
has  given  a  description  of  the  priestly  prerogative  in  the 
sacrament  of  penance  in  more  rhetorical  terms  than  the 
doctors  saw  fit  to  employ.  Thus  Gaume  represents  the 
/priest  as  standing  in  respect  of  his  power  to  absolve 

/  sinners  above  the  whole  hierarchy  of  angels  and  even 
above  the  mother  of  God,  the  queen  of  angels  and  of 

V  men.  "Still  more ;  suppose  that  the  Redeemer  comes 
down  personally  and  visibly  into  a  church,  and  takes  up 
his  place  in  a  confessional  to  administer  the  sacrament  of 
penance,  while  there  is  a  priest  in  another  at  hand.  The 

1  Sess.  xiv. 


THE   SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  259 

Son  of  God  says,  'I  absolve  you/  and  the  priest  on  his\ 
part  says,  'I  absolve  you';  in  both  cases  the  penitents 
alike  are  absolved.  Thus  the  priest,  as  powerful  as  God, 
can  in  a  moment  snatch  a  sinner  from  hell,  render  him 
worthy  of  paradise,  and  from  a  slave  of  the  devil  make 
him  a  child  of  Abraham.  God  himself  is  bound  to  hold 
to  the  judgment  of  the  priest,  to  refuse  or  to  grant  par- 
don, according  as  the  priest  refuses  or  grants  absolution, 
provided  the  penitent  is  worthy  of  it.  The  sentence  of 
the  priest  precedes :  God  only  subscribes  to  it.  Can  any- 
one conceive  a  greater,  a  higher  dignity?"1  Few  ex- 
ponents of  Roman  Catholicism  would  care  to  repeat  the 
phrases  of  this  specimen  of  the  descriptive  art  of  sacer- 
dotalism. And  yet  it  cannot  be  said  to  go  appreciably 
beyond  the  logical  implications  of  the  current  theory.  If 
the  priest  is  not  under  divine  coercion  in  absolving  or 
refusing  to  absolve;  if  he  really  exercises  his  own  dis- 
cretion in  this  great  function ;  if,  furthermore,  his  absolv- 
ing sentence  is  ordinarily  a  condition  of  remission,  then 
Gaume's  picture  of  a  God,  who  must  wait  for  the  priest 
and  order  his  own  act  according  to  that  of  an  earthly 
ministrant,  is  true.  Now,  so  far  as  we  have  been  able  to 
discover,  Roman  dogmatists  do  not  challenge  a  single 
one  of  these  premises.  Aside  from  the  rare  instance  of 
a  perfect  contrition  outside  of  the  sacrament,  they  make 
the  priest  with  his  absolving  sentence  the  indispensable 
condition  or  medium  of  the  remission  of  sins.  "Accord-1 
ing  to  the  true  Catholic  doctrine,"  says  Sasse,  "the  power  \ 
of  remitting  and  retaining  sins  is  a  true  power,  though 
ministerial,  by  itself  and  immediately  effecting  the  remis- 
sion of  sins,  and  its  act  or  the  absolution  pronounced  by  / 

1  Catechism  of  Perseverance,  II.  546,  547. 


26o  THE    ROMAN    TYPE 

the  priest  is  immediate  cause  of  this  remission.  .  .  . 
If  without  the  sacrament  remission  of  sins  could  be  ob- 
tained, the  priest  would  not  have  the  efficacious  power  of 
retaining  sins.  And,  indeed,  that  this  power  may  be 
efficacious,  the  priest  in  retaining  sin  or  denying  absolu- 
tion ought  to  be  able  to  effect  that  the  sin  should  remain 
in  the  sight  of  God."1  "In  the  forum  externum"  writes 
Heinrich,  "the  judge  declares  the  innocence  of  the  ac- 
cused, while  the  judge  in  the  sacrament  of  penance  effects 
innocence  through  the  absolution.  This  has  its  ground 
in  the  purpose  of  this  sacrament  to  free  from  sins,  and 
in  the  peculiarity  of  this  tribunal,  in  which  the  judge 
takes  the  place  of  God  and  therefore  can  remit  affronts 
to  him."2  "In  the  words  of  our  Lord,"  observes  Russo, 
"the  forgiveness  of  heaven  is  made  to  depend  upon  that 
which  the  Church,  through  her  ministers,  gives  on  earth ; 
so  that  those  are  not  to  be  pardoned  there  whose  sins 
are  retained  by  the  Church.  This,  however,  would  not 
be  the  case  were  there  any  other  means  of  pardon. 
Therefore,  forgiveness  cannot  be  obtained  save  through 
the  ministerial  office  of  the  Church."3 
/^The  Tridentine  teaching  implies  that  there  is  no  pos- 
I  sible  remission  of  sins  committed  after  baptism  except 
\through  the  sacrament  of  penance  received  in  act  or  at 
Aeast  in  purpose.  Even  perfect  contrition  will  not  avail 
unless  the  penitent  has  the  will  to  betake  himself  to  the 
sacrament.  This  seems  to  insure  the  damnation  of  a 
multitude  only  less  numerous  than  that  which  is  shut 
out  of  the  kingdom  by  the  lack  of  baptism.  Indeed,  the 
result  which  is  inferred  from  the  necessity  of  the  sacra- 

1  Inst.  Theol.  de  Sacramentis,  II.  39,  97.  *  Lehrbuch,  p.  720. 

1  The  True  Religion  and  its  Dogmas,  p.   237.     Compare  Byrne,  The 
Catholic  Doctrine  of  Faith  and  Morals,  pp.  255.  267. 


THE    SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  261 

ment  of  penance  may  be  regarded  as  rivaling  in  its  ap- 
palling character  the  fate  which  Roman  dogmatics  ap- 
points to  that  great  section  of  the  race  which  dies  without 
baptism  in  the  estate  of  infancy;  for  it  is  not  simply  a 
negative  damnation  which  overtakes  those  who  fail  to 
hear  the  absolving  sentence  of  the  priest.  Doubtless 
since  the  age  of  the  Tridentine  Council  somewhat  of  a 
tendency  has  been  developed  to  a  formal  admission  of 
the  possible  salvation  of  those  who,  being  bound  by  in- 
vincible ignorance,  are  true  to  the  light  that  is  given 
them.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  most  recent  dogma- 
tists repeat  the  Tridentine  supposition  that  only  perfect 
contrition  with  desire  for  the  sacrament  of  penance  is  an 
adequate  compensation  for  the  lack  of  the  sacrament. 
They  do  not  say  that  invincible  ignorance  excuses  the 
absence  of  the  desire;  and  even  should  they  admit  this 
much  they  would  be  slow  to  grant  that  the  requirement 
of  perfect  contrition  is  often  met  by  non-Catholics,  since 
the  admission  of  that  much  would  amount  to  an  acknowl- 
edgment that  sanctity  is  no  distinctive  mark  of  the  Catho- 
lic Church.  It  is  quite  certain,  therefore,  that  from  the 
standpoint  of  Roman  orthodoxy  the  asserted  necessity 
of  the  sacrament  of  penance  amounts  to  an  assumption 
of  the  eternal  perdition  of  great  multitudes.  They  may 
have  virtue  and  piety  enough  to  give  them  a  pronounced 
gravitation  toward  God  and  toward  all  the  beautiful  and 
lofty  ideals  of  his  kingdom;  but  being  askew  in  their 
relation  to  Roman  machinery  there  is  but  the  smallest 
fragment  of  a  hope  for  them. 

The  terms  have  been  noticed  in  which  the  Council  of 
Trent  spoke  of  attrition.  The  ecumenical  assembly  left 
no  doubt  about  its  intention  to  assert  the  value  of  attri- 


262  THE  ROMAN  TYPE 

tion,  but  did  not  declare  in  a  perfectly  definite  form  that 
this  imperfect  repentance  is  an  adequate  basis  for  the 
execution  of  the  sacrament  of  penance,  though  the  lan- 
guage employed  is  suggestive  of  such  adequacy.  There 
was,  accordingly,  opportunity  for  further  development 
on  this  point.  The  development  may  not  have  gone  for- 
ward in  a  straight  line ;  but  on  the  whole  it  has  not  belied 
the  inherent  tendency  of  ultra  sacramentalism  to  magnify 
the  virtue  of  ecclesiastical  mechanism.  It  was  not  long 
before  the  inference  was  drawn,  and  published  in  the 
most  outspoken  terms,  that  the  inferior  penitence  styled 
attrition  suffices  for  the  sacrament  of  penance,  and  that 
consequently  under  the  new  dispensation  less,  in  the  way 
of  interior  conditions,  is  necessary,  in  order  to  the  remis- 
sion of  sins,  than  was  requisite  under  the  old  dispensa- 
tion. In  1644  Pinthereau  testified:  "The  Jesuits  teach 
unanimously  that  attrition  alone,  even  when  it  has  for 
motive  only  the  fear  of  hell,  provided  it  excludes  the  will 
to  sin,  is  a  sufficient  disposition  for  the  sacrament  of 
penance,  and  they  hold  this  teaching  to  be  very  Catholic, 
proximate  to  dogma,  and  entirely  in  harmony  with  the 
Council  of  Trent."1  How  free  this  party  was  to  draw 
the  inference  that  the  sacrament  abridges  the  require- 
ment for  interior  conditions  of  salvation  is  illustrated  by 
the  following  statement  of  Laymann :  "There  is  this  dis- 
tinction between  the  state  of  things  under  the  evangelical 
law  and  the  state  obtaining  before  the  grace  of  the  gospel : 
that  before  the  law  of  grace  no  adult  person  could  be 
freed  from  mortal  sin  and  justified  without  true  contri- 
tion, including  the  love  of  God  above  all  things;  more- 


1  Dollinger  und  Reusch,  Geschichte  der  Moralstreitigkeiten  in  der  romisch- 
katholischen  Kirche  seit  dem  sechzehnten  Jahrhundert,  I.  81. 


THE   SACRAMENTAL   SYSTEM  263 

over,  that  the  sacraments  of  the  old  law  were  empty 
signs  which  by  themselves  did  not  confer  the  grace  of 
God,  but  excited  faith  in  Christ,  which,  if  it  had  been 
formed  by  an  act  of  love  and  contrition,  had  power  to 
justify.  But  under  the  new  law  after  the  commission  of 
a  mortal  sin  true  contrition  is  not  necessary  to  a  man  who 
is  about  to  receive  the  sacrament  of  baptism  or  of  pen- 
ance ;  but  attrition  suffices,  even  if  it  is  known  to  be  such : 
wherefore,  it  is  wont  to  be  said,  that  from  attrite  by 
virtue  of  the  sacrament  a  man  is  made  contrite."1  It 
was  this  sort  of  teaching  which  drew  from  Pascal  the 
exclamation,  "This  is  the  climax  of  impiety!  The  price 
of  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  paid  to  obtain  for  us  a  dis- 
pensation from  loving  him."2  But  no  Jansenist  protest 
could  drive  out  the  doctrine  of  the  attritionists.  It  met, 
indeed,  with  much  objection  for  a  period.  The  declara- 
tions of  Pope  Innocent  XI  were  favorable  to  its  opponents 
rather  than  to  its  advocates.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
decisions  of  Alexander  VII  and  Benedict  XIII,  while  not 
positively  commendatory,  were  on  the  side  of  rating  it  as 
a  tolerable  doctrine;  and  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
eighteenth  century  it  gained  an  efficient  means  of  ad- 
vance through  the  advocacy  of  Liguori.  The  statements 
of  this  writer  fully  match  the  passage  cited  from  Lay- 
mann.  "It  is  asked,"  he  says,  "whether  for  the  valid 
reception  of  the  sacrament  of  penance  contrition  is  re- 
quired, or  whether  attrition  suffices.  It  is  a  certain 
opinion,  and  one  common  to  the  doctors  that  perfect  con- 
trition is  not  required,  but  that  attrition  suffices.  .  .  . 
An  objection  is  made  to  our  view  of  the  sufficiency  of 
attrition  as  follows:  A  sinner  turned  away  from  God 

1  Theologia  Moralis,  1625,  lib.  v,  tract,  vi,  cap.  a.         *  Provincial  Letters. 


264  THE   ROMAN   TYPE 

cannot  be  converted  to  God  except  through  love  formal 
and  actual.  We  reply:  This  indeed  is  required  outside 
of  the  sacrament,  and  the  occasion  is  that,  as  through  sin 
which  is  actual  contempt  of  God  a  man  is  turned  away 
from  God,  so  through  actual  love  he  ought  to  convert 
himself  to  God.  But  another  thing  is  to  be  said  concern- 
ing the  remission  of  sins  within  the  sacrament,  since  the 
sacrament  has  the  virtue  of  blotting  out  sin,  and  does  not, 
except  through  the  infusion  of  grace  which  is  itself 
habitual  love,  suffice  for  obtaining  grace,  so  that  the 
sinner  is  disposed  through  attrition  to  receiving  the  sac- 
rament, in  virtue  of  which  without  actual  love  he  is  con- 
verted to  God,  as  outside  of  the  sacrament  he  is  converted 
through  love.  And  so  it  is  understood  how  a  sinner  from 
attrite  is  made  contrite ;  that  is,  by  virtue  of  the  keys  he 
is  made  as  good  as  contrite,  as  say  in  common  all  the 
advocates  of  our  opinion."1  Liguori,  it  is  true,  includes 
in  attrition  a  certain  love  of  God,  but  it  is  only  an  in- 
ferior grade  which  is  born  of  the  rising  hope  of  escaping 
the  torments  of  hell.  His  teaching  is  perfectly  explicit  in 
making  ecclesiastical  mechanism  to  take  the  place  in  part 
of  the  interior  conditions  of  salvation  which  obtained 
under  the  Jewish  dispensation.  Pascal's  remark  on  the 
maxims  of  the  seventeenth-century  Jesuits  applies  to  his 
teaching.  It  carries  the  conclusion  that  the  blood  of 
Christ  has  purchased  release  from  the  necessity  of  loving 
God  with  a  true  and  positive  affection.  Now,  Liguori, 
as  has  been  indicated  in  another  connection,  has  been 
honored  by  ecclesiastical  authority  above  all  modern 
writers,  having  been  canonized  by  Gregory  XVI  and 
declared  a  doctor  of  the  Church  by  Pius  IX.  Such  tokens 

1  Theologia  Moralis,  lib.  vi,  tract,  iv,  n.  440-442. 


THE   SACRAMENTAL   SYSTEM  265 

of  extraordinary  appreciation,  while  not  an  explicit  sanc- 
tion of  Liguori's  attritionism,  amount  to  a  declaration 
that  it  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  perilous  tenet,  but  rather 
as  quite  admissible.  And  so  we  find  it  considered  by 
representative  writers.  Gury,  for  instance,  asserts  that 
it  is  morally  certain  that  attrition  with  the  sacrament  suf- 
fices for  justification,  and  that  the  attrition  which  is  thus 
effective  involves  no  such  degree  of  love  to  God  as  would 
be  requisite  outside  of  the  sacrament.1  Sasse  lays  down 
this  proposition:  "From  the  teaching  of  the  Council 
of  Trent  (sess.  xiv,  cap.  4)  it  is  inferred  that  attrition 
arising  from  the  fear  of  hell,  if  it  excludes  the  will  to  sin 
and  is  conjoined  with  the  hope  of  favor,  is  a  proximate 
and  sufficient  disposition  for  obtaining  justification  in  the 
sacrament  of  penance."  He  also  states  that  under  the 
New  Testament  scheme  there  is  a  less  demand  for  love 
toward  God,  as  a  condition  of  justification,  than  existed 
under  the  Old  Testament  dispensation.2  "That  sacra- 
ments may  work,"  argues  Hurter,  "it  suffices  that  the 
obstacle  be  removed.  But  the  obstacle  in  the  sacrament 
of  penance,  namely,  adhesion  to  sin,  is  sufficiently  re- 
moved by  attrition,  which  is  grief  of  mind  and  detestation 
of  sin,  with  the  purpose  not  to  sin  further,  even  if  this  is 
called  forth  by  the  fear  of  hell.  Therefore  such  attrition 
suffices."3  Heinrich  speaks  in  like  manner  of  the  suf- 
ficiency of  attrition,  and  while  he  supposes  that  love  is 
implicitly  contained  in  this  imperfect  penitence,  he  denies 
the  warrant  for  making  a  demand  for  any  positive  act 
of  love  as  a  condition  of  a  proper  sacramental  grace.4 

1  Compendium  Theplogiae  Moralis,  1857,  pp.  337-340.    Compare  Pruner, 
Lehrbucn  der  Katholischen  Moraltheologie,  p.  317. 
*  Inst.  Theol.  de  Sacramentis,  II.  139,  149. 
» Theol.  Dogmat.  Compend.,  III.  457.  '  Lehrbuch,  pp.  736-739. 


266  THE   ROMAN   TYPE 

"The  opinion,"  remarks  Billot,  "which  asserts  the  suf- 
ficiency of  attrition  can  be  called  certain  enough,  espe- 
cially since  the  faithful  are  commonly  taught  in  accord- 
ance with  it,  the  Church  not  objecting,  yea,  even  favor- 
ing, while  yet  an  error  in  this  matter  would  not  by  any 
means  be  harmless."1  Lehmkuhl  makes  no  question 
about  the  adequacy  of  attrition,  though  he  is  careful  to 
put  into  the  term  the  maximum  meaning  attached  to  it 
in  theological  usage.2  That  attrition  with  the  sacrament 
suffices  for  the  forgiveness  of  sins  is  treated  by  Koch  as 
a  certain  proposition.3  In  the  Catholic  Dictionary  of 
Addis  and  Arnold  we  meet  this  broad  statement:  "At 
present  the  opinion  that  attrition  with  the  sacrament  of 
penance  suffices  is  universally  held."4  And  so  at  the  end 
of  the  nineteenth  century  the  Roman  Catholic  teaching 
justifies  the  inference  of  Laymann,  Liguori,  and  others 
that  under  the  Christian  dispensation  sacramental  per- 
formance takes  the  place  in  part  of  the  interior  conditions 
of  salvation.  A  Christian  can  obtain  the  pardon  of  his 
sins  at  a  lower  level  than  could  a  Jew  or  a  heathen  before 
he  proclamation  of  the  gospel. 

In  criticising  the  Roman  Catholic  doctrine  of  the  sac- 
rament of  penance,  especially  as  regards  the  feature  of 
judicial  absolution,  it  is  warrantable  in  the  first  place  to 

r charge  against  the  doctrine  that  it  authorizes  the  priest 
to  pronounce  a  sentence  which  cannot  be  known  to  fit 
the  case  to  which  it  is  applied.  There  is  no  pretense  that 
the  priest  has  any  sure  means,  natural  or  supernatural, 


1  De  Eccl.  Sacramentis,  II.  158.  'Theologia  Moralis,  1902,  II.  2<>4ff. 

1  Lehrbuch  der  Moraltheologie,  1907,  §  57. 

4  Article  "Attrition."     Compare  corresponding  article  in  Catholic  En- 
cyclopedia. 


THE   SACRAMENTAL   SYSTEM  267 

of  knowing  the  heart  of  the  penitent,  and  consequently  \ 
of  discovering  whether  or  not  the  applicant  for  grace  is 
fulfilling  perfectly  indispensable  conditions  of  remission.  J 
The  utterance  of  a  judicial  sentence  is,  therefore,  an  act 
which  pays  the  poorest  sort  of  respect  to  the  demands  of 
truth.  According  to  indisputable  and  generally  acknowl- 
edged premises  the  confessor  may  be  uttering  a  down- 
right falsehood  when  he  says,  "I  absolve  thee."  The 
scheme  of  sacerdotal  assumption,  within  which  he  stands, 
puts  him  to  acting  the  part  of  a  judge  when  he  does  not 
know  the  case. 

Again,  it  is  to  be  charged  against  the  Roman  teaching* 
on  this  theme  that  it  subordinates  God  in  a  most  incredi-  I 
ble  manner  to  the  acts  of  a  fallible  earthly  tribunal.  To 
suppose  that  God,  before  determining  his  own  attitude 
toward  a  penitent,  waits  for  the  sentence  of  a  priest,  is 
to  suppose  that  he  fetters  his  omniscience  and  divests/ 
himself  of  his  ethical  nature.  As  omniscient  he  rrfust 
take  cognizance  of  genuine  contrition  the  instant  that  it 
arises  in  the  heart  of  the  penitent.  As  the  living  God, 
perfectly  alive  in  his  moral  nature,  he  must  respond  with 
favoring  judgment  and  complacent  love  to  the  one  who 
approaches  him  in  hearty  repentance  for  past  misdeeds 
and  with  earnest  resolves  for  future  obedience.  Better 
to  assume  that  the  puny  hand  of  a  mortal  can  gather  up 
all  the  rays  of  the  sun  and  quench  the  shining  of  that 
mighty  orb  than  to  suppose  that  the  intelligence  and 
benevolence  of  God  can  be  restrained  from  immediate 
recognition  and  approval  of  the  rightly  disposed  person. 
He  would  deny  himself  if  he  delayed  a  favoring  judg- 
ment for  the  fraction  of  a  second.  That  judgment,  too, 
once  rendered  is  absolutely  determinative  of  the  status  of 


268  THE   ROMAN   TYPE 

the  individual.  So  long  as  the  conditions  remain  un- 
changed it  cannot  rationally  be  counted  a  subject  for 
revision  any  more  than  God  can  be  counted  a  subject  for 
reformation.  The  only  thing  to  be  done  after  its  utter- 
ance in  the  divine  mind  and  heart  is  to  convey  its  import 
to  the  penitent;  and  even  for  this  purpose  any  earthly 
official  is  a  blundering  insufficient  instrumentality  com- 
pared with  the  Spirit  that  beareth  witness  with  our  spirits 
that  we  are  the  children  of  God. 

The  insuperable  rational  objections  to  the  Roman  the- 
ory of  absolution  in  the  sacrament  of  penance  strongly 
suggest  that  an  improbable  and  unnecessary  interpreta- 
tion is  put  into  the  scriptural  texts  which  are  cited  in  its 
behalf,  namely,  those  on  binding  and  loosing  and  on  for- 
giving and  retaining  sins.1  Even  when  taken  in  their 
bald  verbal  sense  these  texts  do  not  justify  the  Roman 
sacramental  theory.  There  is  no  declaration  in  them 
that  sins  cannot  be  forgiven  in  response  to  a  direct  appeal 
to  God.  When  Christ  said  of  himself,  "The  Son  of  man 
hath  power  on  earth  to  forgive  sins,"  he  was  far  from 
declaring  that  the  forgiveness  of  sins  was  bound  to  his 
formal  sentence.  Who,  then,  is  authorized  to  say  that  he 
could  not  have  spoken  of  a  function  of  forgiveness  on 
the  part  of  his  disciples,  without  any  thought  of  tying  up 
the  matter  of  forgiveness  in  general  to  their  judgment? 
Certainly  it  is  perfectly  supposable  that  under  the  form  of 
words  used  he  meant  only  to  refer  to  a  function  which 
would  unavoidably  be  called  into  exercise  in  connection 
with  known  offenses  against  God  and  against  the  Chris- 
tian brotherhood.  Any  religious  society  which  has  any 
sort  of  stanch  discipline  must  fulfill  an  office  of  binding 

1  Matt.  xvi.  19;  xviii.  18;  John  xx.  23. 


THE   SACRAMENTAL   SYSTEM  269 

and  loosing,  must  pass  sentence  on  offenses.  How  gratui- 
tous, then,  to  suppose  that  a  reference  to  such  an  office 
necessarily  involved  a  demand  for  unveiling  secret  sins 
to  an  official  and  for  waiting  upon  his  volition  for  a  grant 
of  remission!  The  institution  of  the  confessional  runs 
far  ahead  of  the  New  Testament  texts  even  when  they 
are  taken  broadly.  But  there  are  ample  reasons  for 
taking  them  with  certain  qualifications.  Indeed,  the  rea- 
sons for  so  doing  are  absolutely  compulsory.  In  the 
nature  of  the  case  the  words  spoken  by  Christ  could  not 
apply  unconditionally.  He  spoke  here,  as  he  did  in 
other  connections,  and  as  his  apostles  did  also,  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  ideal.  When  we  hear  him  saying  to 
his  followers,  "Ye  are  the  light  of  the  world,"  we  know 
that  he  meant  that  in  the  ideal  fulfillment  of  their  voca- 
tion they  would  be  a  source  of  spiritual  enlightenment, 
not  that  actually  they  would  never  be  a  source  of  con- 
fusion and  darkness  through  inconsistent  living.  In 
like  manner,  when  we  hear  John  uttering  the  emphatic 
words,  "Whosoever  is  begotten  of  God  doeth  no  sin,  and 
he  cannot  sin  because  he  is  begotten  of  God,"  we  appre- 
hend readily  that  he  is  setting  forth  an  ideal  of  sonship 
toward  God,  and  meant  to  show  how  contrary  sin  is  to 
that  ideal,  rather  than  actually  to  assert  the  impossibility 
of  sin  in  the  reborn  man.  In  connection  with  such  texts 
we  obey  the  dictates  of  common  sense  in  supplying  the 
necessary  qualifications.  But  the  demand  of  common 
sense  for  qualifying  considerations  in  the  instances  ad- 
duced is  not  a  whit  greater  than  in  connection  with  the 
texts  on  binding  and  loosing,  or  on  forgiving  and  retain- 
ing sins.  These  vivid  forms  of  expression  picture  an 
ideal.  They  presuppose  that  the  disciples  in  full  meas- 


270  THE   ROMAN   TYPE 

ure  will  be  animated  and  guided  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  and 
promise,  with  that  condition  in  view,  that  their  adminis- 
tration of  discipline  in  the  Church  shall  be  conformable 
to  a  heavenly  pattern.  Remove  the  presupposition  that 
they  will  act  as  true  agents  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  the 
liability  is  presented  at  once  that  their  judgments  should 
rather  be  overruled  than  confirmed  in  the  court  of  heaven. 
With  this  qualification  a  second  must  be  conjoined  as  an 
equally  imperative  dictate  of  common  sense.  Even  when 
fulfilling  their  vocation  to  pass  judgment  on  offenses  in 
the  very  best  manner  the  disciples  cannot  be  regarded  as 
really  giving  the  initiative  to  divine  action  or  as  con- 
trolling divine  judgment.  If  their  verdicts  are  confirmed 
in  heaven  it  will  be  just  because  of  their  agreement  with 
the  foregoing  judgments  of  God,  which  annihilate  time  in 
their  instant  response  to  spiritual  conditions.  To  picture 
God  as  standing  idle  until  the  earthly  sentences  are  passed 
is  to  indulge  in  a  preposterous  use  of  the  imagination. 
The  things  done  in  the  visible  sphere  can  have  a  title  to 
be  seconded  in  the  invisible  sphere  only  on  the  score  of 
their  harmony  with  the  verdicts  already  passed  in  the 
latter  sphere.  Even  Christ  himself,  in  forgiving  sins, 
never  dreamed  of  conditioning  the  act  of  the  Father. 
"The  Son,"  he  declared,  "can  do  nothing  of  himself,  but 
what  he  seeth  the  Father  doing."  How,  then,  shall  a 
disciple,  gifted  with  no  infallible  insight,  himself  a  sinner, 
be  able  by  his  mere  formal  act  in  the  confessional  either 
to  hasten  or  to  delay  the  divine  forgiveness?  The  thing 
is  past  rational  conception.  Yielding  to  the  compulsion 
of  common  sense,  we  are  compelled  to  conclude  that  for- 
giveness of  sins  in  the  primary  and  fundamental  sense 
belongs  to  God  alone,  and  that  he  can  no  more  have  a 


THE   SACRAMENTAL   SYSTEM  271 

finite  partner  in  the  matter  than  he  can  have  such  a  part- 
ner in  the  formation  of  his  thoughts.  In  a  secondary 
sense  only  does  forgiveness  belong  to  the  Christian 
brotherhood  or  to  any  set  of  officials  in  that  brotherhood. 
The  officials,  acting  in  behalf  of  the  brotherhood,  can 
extend  or  refuse  to  extend  reconciling  grace  to  those  who 
have  offended  against  the  terms  of  communion.  The 
emphatic  words  of  Christ  to  the  disciples  amounted  to  a 
promise  that  in  the  discharge  of  this  high  responsibility 
they  should  be  assisted  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  so  be  able 
to  hope  that  their  acts,  as  being  conformable  to  divine 
discretion,  would  be  seconded  or  confirmed  in  heaven. 
Taken  in  this  range,  those  words  have  a  sufficiently  lofty 
significance.  It  would  be  a  wonderful  achievement  for 
any  communion  to  deal  so  well  with  its  individual  mem- 
bers, or  with  candidates  for  membership,  that  their  rela- 
tions to  the  visible  society  should  be  a  true  reflex  of  their 
relations  to  the  invisible  kingdom. 

Historically  the  above  interpretation  is  confirmed  by 
the  absence  from  the  New  Testament  of  everything  like 
an  injunction  to  sacramental  confession.  James  speaks, 
indeed,  of  confession  (v.  16),  but,  as  his  language  plainly 
imports,  he  had  reference  simply  to  a  mutual  confession 
of  faults  as  a  means  of  interchange  of  sympathy  among 
brethren  and  a  motive  to  prayer  in  each  other's  behalf. 
There  is  not  the  remotest  hint  of  auricular  confession  or 
of  a  sacrament  of  penance  in  what  he  says.  The  New 
Testament,  furthermore,  records  no  instance  of  an  at- 
tempt to  pardon  or  to  retain  sins  in  the  eminent  sense  on 
the  part  of  an  apostle  or  his  delegate.  Paul,  it  is  true, 
speaks  of  delivering  over  a  scandalous  offender  at  Corinth 
to  Satan.  But  this  form  of  statement,  if  not  merely  a 


272  THE   ROMAN   TYPE 

rhetorical  equivalent  for  expulsion  from  the  Church,  de- 
notes the  consignment  of  the  transgressor  to  a  special 
physical  chastisement,  a  supernatural  infliction  upon  the 
body,  in  return  for  his  grievous  trespass.  In  either  case 
no  ground  is  afforded  for  supposing  that  the  apostolic 
sentence  determined  the  status  of  the  culprit  in  the  sight 
of  God.  Apostolic  practice,  so  far  as  recorded,  affords 
no  single  scrap  of  evidence  in  favor  of  the  priestly  pre- 
rogative assumed  to  be  exercised  in  the  confessional. 
f  It  took  a  long  age  to  reach  the  complete  doctrine  of  the 
sacrament  of  penance  which  rules  in  Roman  Catholicism. 
In  the  early  Church  there  were  doubtless  ways  of  thinking 
and  customs  which  were  suited  to  serve  as  starting-points 
of  the  doctrine.  Especially  influential  was  the  notion 
that  sins  committed  after  baptism  are  hard  to  be  forgiven, 
and  therefore  require  special  satisfactions.  In  order  to 
be  sure  that  he  was  rendering  the  appropriate  satisfac- 
tions the  penitent  had  occasion  to  take  counsel  of  the 
bishop  or  priest.  It  began  also  to  be  an  accepted  maxim 
that  voluntary  confession  has  a  certain  merit  and  may 
properly  be  a  ground  for  a  lessened  penalty.  There  was 
thus  a  growing  demand  for  recourse  on  the  part  of  peni- 
tents to  priestly  offices.  Still,  for  several  centuries  con- 
fession, where  not  simply  to  God,  was  mainly  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  congregation.  And  when  the  penitent  went 
to  the  priest  with  his  confession  it  was  for  other  ends 
than  the  obtaining  from  him  of  a  sentence  of  absolution 
in  private.  The  absolution  took  place  before  the  congre- 
gation, which  united  in  the  prayers  for  the  one  who  had 
confessed  his  need  of  pardon.  The  priest  was  adviser, 
intercessor,  doorkeeper  of  the  Church,  and  as  such  pos- 
sessed a  large  importance,  but  he  was  not  rated  as  the 


THE   SACRAMENTAL   SYSTEM  273 

efficacious  and  indispensable  medium  of  divine  forgive- 
ness. Even  a  man  so  largely  impregnated  with  the  sacer- 
dotal temper  as  Cyprian  speaks  freely  of  the  liability  of 
priestly  sentences  to  be  revised  at  the  divine  tribunal.1 
He  remarks  also :  "The  Lord  alone  can  have  mercy.  He 
alone  can  bestow  pardon  for  sins  which  have  been  com- 
mitted against  himself,  who  bore  our  sins,  who  sorrowed 
for  us,  whom  God  delivered  up  for  our  sins."2  A  like 
point  of  view  comes  out  in  a  remark  of  Firmilian. 
Among  the  occasions,  he  says,  for  the  yearly  assembling 
of  prelates  and  priests  is  this,  "that  some  remedy  may 
be  sought  for  by  repentance  for  lapsed  brethren,  and  for 
those  wounded  by  the  devil  after  the  saving  laver,  not 
as  though  they  obtained  remission  of  sins  from  us,  but 
that  by  our  means  they  may  be  converted  to  the  under- 
standing of  their  sins,  and  may  be  compelled  to  give  fuller 
satisfaction  to  the  Lord."3  In  line  with  these  statements, 
and  as  little  indicative  of  a  necessary  sacramental  absolu- 
tion, are  the  references  of  Socrates  and  Sozomen  to  a 
general  lapse,  in  the  Eastern  Church,  of  the  practice  of 
confession,  so  that  men  were  left  to  their  own  consciences 
as  to  participation  in  the  eucharist.4  Had  it  been  an 
accepted  maxim  that  the  pardon  of  sins  requires  con- 
fession to  a  priest  and  the  utterance  of  an  absolving  sen- 
tence by  him,  the  state  of  things  described  by  these  his- 
torians could  not  possibly  have  had  place  even  tempo- 
rarily. Supplementing  all  other  evidence  we  have  the\ 
great  fact  that  the  conciliar  decisions  of  the  early  centu-  j 
ries  do  not  so  much  as  recognize  the  existence  of  the  con-  J 
fessional.  Their  regulations  relative  to  penitents  all  have 

1  Epist.  li.  18  (ad  Antonianum).  *  De  Lapsis,  §  17. 

1  Epist.  Ixxiv.  4,  in  works  of  Cyprian. 

4  Socrates,  Hist.  Eccl.,  v.  19;  Sozomen,  Hist.  Eccl.,  vii.  16. 


274  THE   ROMAN   TYPE 

reference  to  public  penance  and  to  reconciliation  before 
the  congregation.  It  is  alleged,  indeed,  by  various  Ro- 
man Catholic  writers  that,  aside  from  the  regime  which 
thus  comes  to  manifestation,  sacramental  confession  and 
absolution  were  customary.  Relative  to  this  claim  a  com- 
petent investigator  remarks :  "The  modern  assumption 
that  alongside  of  this  jurisdiction  in  the  forum  externum 
there  was  a  corresponding  authority  exercised  over  the 
forum  internum,  and  that  a  system  existed  through  which 
absolution  was  granted  for  secret  sins,  which  the  sinner 
shrank  from  confessing  openly  before  the  congregation, 
is  wholly  gratuitous."1  In  the  view  of  Harnack  it  was 
by  an  extension  of  the  discipline  of  the  monastery  to  the 
laity  generally  that  the  custom  of  a  comprehensive  con- 
fession of  sins  to  the  priest  became  current  in  the  West. 
He  holds  also  that  well  into  the  Carlovingian  period 
various  points  embraced  in  the  ultimate  theory  respecting 
confession  and  absolution  were  left  indeterminate.2  Con- 
joining with  these  evidences  the  acknowledged  fact  that 
up  to  the  twelfth  century  the  regular  formula  for  absolu- 
tion was  precatory  rather  than  judicial,3  and  taking  cogni- 
zance of  the  further  fact  that  even  in  the  scholastic  period 
men  of  the  rank  of  Peter  Lombard  and  Pullus  made  the 
sentence  of  the  priest  simply  declaratory  rather  than 
causal  in  relation  to  the  remission  of  sins,4  we  may  con- 
clude with  good  warrant  that  it  was  by  a  long  process  of 
accretion  that  the  Romish  dogma  of  the  sacrament  of 
penance  came  into  being.  It  follows,  accordingly,  that 
several  of  the  canons  of  the  Council  of  Trent  invoke 

1  H.  C.  Lea,  History  of  Confession  and  Indulgences,  I.   18.     Compare 
Newman,  Essay  on  the  Development  of  Doctrine,  second  edit.,  p.  365. 
'History  of  Dogma,  V.  325,  326. 
1  Wetzer  und  Welte,  Kirchenlexicon,  I.  124. 
4  Lombard,  Sent.,  iv.  18.  5,  6;  Pullus,  Sent.,  vi.  61. 


THE   SACRAMENTAL   SYSTEM  275 

damnation  on  men  for  no  worse  fault  than  that  of  refus- 
ing consent  to  fictions. 

For  the  unbiased  mind  there  is  another  historical  eyi-\ 
dence  quite  as  cogent  as  any  that  has  been  mentioned.  \ 
The  Romish  dogma  makes  recourse  to  the  judicial  sen- 
tence of  the  priest,  in  fact  or  in  desire,  to  be  essential  to 
the  pardon  of  sins.  But  the  experience  of  vast  multi- 
tudes of  devout  Christians  in  each  succeeding  generation 
demonstrates  that  such  recourse  is  quite  unnecessary. 
Without  a  consideration  for  priestly  offices  they  gain  the 
blessing  of  a  divine  peace  and  love  in  their  souls  and  are 
able  to  march  on  with  joyful  hope  to  a  triumph  over 
death.  Blind  indeed  must  be  the  one  who  does  not  see 
in  a  spectacle  like  that  a  decisive  judgment  on  the  bravado 
of  sacerdotal  dogma. 

If  space  permitted  it  would  not  be  going  outside  the 
domain  of  legitimate  criticism  to  speak  of  the  practical 
effects  of  a  scheme  of  enforced  confession  and  judicial 
absolution.  At  the  best  it  makes  prominent  an  earthly 
tribunal  to  the  relative  hiding  of  a  divine,  fosters  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent  a  mechanical  dealing  with  sin,  and 
through  its  exorbitant  demand  for  the  weighing  and 
measuring  of  transgressions  easily  becomes  a  source  of 
perverse  casuistry.  At  the  worst  it  becomes  a  snare  for 
both  confessor  and  penitent.  According  to  the  records 
of  the  Spanish  inquisition  for  the  period  between  1723 
and  1820,  the  number  of  cases  entered  against  priests  for 
the  crime  of  solicitation  in  the  confessional  was  thirty- 
seven  hundred  and  seventy-five.1  Let  it  be  supposed  that 
in  more  recent  times  like  instances  of  priestly  sacrilege 
have  been  relatively  much  less  numerous,  still  the  liability 

1  Lea,  History  of  the  Inquisition  of  Spain,  IV.  135. 


276  THE   ROMAN   TYPE 

of  their  occurrence  has  been  clearly  demonstrated.  More- 
over, it  is  quite  evident  that  what  occurs  in  the  confes- 
sional may  prepare  the  way  for  evil  solicitations  outside 
of  the  confessional.  Under  a  law  which  requires  the  un- 
veiling of  every  serious  trespass,  inward  and  outward, 
together  with  all  the  circumstances  which  affect  its  char- 
acter, enforced  confession  has  its  dubious  aspects  even 
when  the  listening  and  catechising  priest  is  of  the  better 
sort.  Where  a  priest  of  the  coarser  grain  occupies  the 
confessional,  enforced  confession  is  a  thing  intrinsically 
odious  to  a  sane  contemplation. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   OUTLOOK  FOR  ROMAN  SACERDOTALISM 

IF  exposure  to  insuperable  objections  were  a  sure 
pledge  of  speedy  defeat  and  downfall,  then  the  gigantic 
system  of  sacerdotalism,  which  is  so  firmly  intrenched  in 
Roman  Catholicism,  might  be  expected  to  be  doomed  ere 
long  to  such  loss  of  influence  in  the  world  and  to  such 
a  slackened  hold  upon  its  constituents  as  would  amount 
to  a  prophecy  of  disintegration.  The  principle  of  author- 
ity upon  which  that  system  rests,  as  has  been  shown,  is 
commended  by  nothing  more  substantial  than  its  con- 
venience for  those  who  aspire  to  a  monopoly  of  ecclesias- 
tical sovereignty.  Scriptural  data  are  utterly  inadequate 
to  accredit  the  existence  of  any  infallible  hierarchy,  and 
do  not  so  much  as  contain  the  least  semblance  of  a  refer- 
ence to  an  inerrant  authority  of  a  Roman  priesthood.  The 
theory  of  the  Scriptures  which  the  Roman  hierarchy  has 
felt  compelled  to  maintain,  in  order  to  safeguard  its  own 
claim  to  infallibility,  is  confuted  by  overwhelming  evi- 
dence, and  cannot  possibly  be  kept  in  credit  in  the  face  of 
scientific  scholarship.  Then,  too,  a  rational  psychology 
cannot  see  how  an  infallible  Church  or  hierarchy  can  be 
obtained  by  the  combination  of  fallible  units,  and  an  un- 
biased examination  of  the  history  of  the  Church  brings 
to  light  such  a  sum  of  folly,  sinfulness,  and  contradiction 
as  amounts  to  a  demonstration  that  infallibility  has  been 
foreign  to  the  collective  body.  So  the  principle  of  au- 
thority which  underlies  the  system  of  Roman  sacerdo- 

377 ,. 


278  THE   ROMAN   TYPE 

talism  is  discredited  when  applied  to  the  Church  or 
the  hierarchy  in  general.  When  applied  to  the  pope  that 
principle  is  still  more  conspicuously  discredited.  The 
tremendous  dogmas  of  papal  supremacy  and  papal  infalli- 
bility make  a  mock  of  early  Christian  history,  stand  in 
flagrant  contradiction  with  a  fair  interpretation  of  a  long 
line  of  events,  and  publish  their  aberrant  character  by  the 
compulsion  which  they  put  upon  apologists  to  utter  propo- 
sitions that  affiliate  rather  with  pagan  magic  than  with 
the  ethical  standpoint  of  the  New  Testament.  Objections 
of  overwhelming  weight  stand  also  against  the  sacra- 
mental system  of  Romanism.  The  plainly  revealed  tend- 
ency of  the  system  as  a  whole  is  to  intrude  mechanism 
into  the  place  of  the  spiritual  conditions  of  salvation,  and 
in  some  of  its  features  it  dishonors  God  and  subjects  rea- 
son to  gratuitous  crucifixion. 

This  condensed  statement  of  objections  may  serve  to 
direct  attention  to  the  basis  of  the  hypothetical  proposi- 
tion with  which  the  chapter  opens.  But  it  does  not  pro- 
vide a  certain  means  for  passing  from  the  hypothetical  to 
the  indicative  form  of  statement^,/  While  in  the  long 
ange  truth  may  be  favoraBIe^  to  perpetuity,  a  system  that 
is  cumbered  with  great  falsities  can  exhibit  immense  per- 
tinacity in  maintaining  itself.  In  the  case  of  Roman 
^sacerdotalism  the  power  of  a  consummate  organization 
and  the  prestige  of  historical  associations  may  be  ex- 
pected to  operate  as  efficient  means  of  support  and  propa- 
gation. It  is  not  to  be  presumed,  however,  that  even  such 
means  can  withstand  the  tide  of  modern  influences  apart 
from  a  most  energetic  employment  of  certain  practical  ex- 
pedients. ^/We  may  say,  indeed,  that  the  problem  of  the 
continued  maintenance  of  the  system  of  Roman  sacer- 


(*•' 

i< 


THE   OUTLOOK  279 

dotalism,  as  a  great  world  power,  is  the  problem  of  the 
successful  employment  of  three  expedients  of  capital  sig- 
nificance for  such  a  system.  The  firstof  these  may  be 
defined  as  a  high  pressure  of  sentimental  devotion.  In  a 
double  point  of  view  this  expedient  is  of  first-class  impor- 
tance. On  the  one  hand,  it  tends  to  exorcise  the  spirit  of 
cool  reflection,  to  check  the  critical  temper  and  to  keep  it 
back  from  prying  too  closely  into  the  grounds  of  sacerdo- 
tal assumption.  On  the  other  hand,  it  works  to  induce 
a  mental  attitude  that  is  directly  favorable  to  a  relative 
prostration  before  ecclesiastical  potentates.  Those  who 
have  been  led  to  a  vivid  sense  of  dependence  upon  the 
Virgin  and  the  saints,  and  have  acquired  the  habit  of 
pouring  out  their  hearts  in  unstinted  devotion  to  these 
creaturely  patrons,  constitute  just  the  elect  subjects  for 
the  required  pitch  of  obeisance  before  "the  vicar  of 
Christ."  It  has  been  in  obedience  to  a  perfectly  logical  de- 
mand that  the  Jesuits,  who  have  been  the  foremost  cham- 
pions of  papal  absolutism  and  infallibility,  have  been  also 
most  conspicuously  active  in  fostering  sentimental  devo- 
tion. As  men  endowed  with  a  fair  degree  of  practical 
sagacity  they  could  not  fail  to  see  that,  in  order  to  gain 
an  established  place  for  the  former,  full  scope  must  be 
given  to  the  latter.  A  previous  page  has  indicated  how 
influential  this  factor  was  in  preparing  the  way  for  the 
Vatican  dogmas.  The  point  to  be  emphasized  here  is 
that  the  same  factor  must  be  kept  at  work  in  full  vigor 
if  those  dogmas  are  to  be  upheld  against  the  inroads  of 
critical  investigation.  The  question  then  arises,  Can 
sentimental  devotion  of  the  specifically  Roman  type  be 
kept  at  the  needful  pitch?  This  question  cannot  be  well 
answered  in  advance  of  a  response  to  the  further  question, 


2&>  THE   ROMAN   TYPE 

Is  the  New  Testament  to  be  an  open  book  to  Roman 
Catholics  generally  and  to  have  a  real  opportunity  to 
shape  their  religious  consciousness?  Should  an  affirma- 
tive response  be  given  to  this  question,  a  rather  substan- 
tial ground  would  be  afforded  for  a  negative  response  to 
the  preceding  question.  To  a  religious  consciousness  of 
the  New  Testament  order  Greek  mythology  is  scarcely 
more  strange  than  are  the  dialect  and  the  conceptions  of 
Romanism  on  the  side  of  sentimental  devotion.  There  are 
papal  encyclicals  of  recent  date  whose  language  and  doc- 
trinal tenor  give  an  occasion  for  inquiry  as  to  whether 
they  even  belong  to  the  general  dispensation  represented 
by  the  Gospels  and  Epistles.  In  short,  there  is  very  little 
reason  to  suppose  that  the  extra-biblical  cult  of  Ro- 
manism, in  which  the  element  of  sentimental  devotion 
comes  to  manifestation,  could  maintain  itself  against  the 
natural  effect  of  a  genuine  impact  of  the  New  Testament 
content  on  the  minds  of  the  great  multitude ;  we  say  gen- 
uine impact,  such  as  would  result,  not  from  a  perfunctory 
reading,  but  from  an  earnest  perusal  with  the  purpose  of 
discovering  the  real  tone  and  tenor  of  the  sacred  volume. 
Can,  then,  the  responsible  agents  of  the  hierarchy  prevent 
that  impact  in  the  coming  age?  That  they  will  be  able  to 
do  this  in  large  measure  would  seem  to  be  the  reasonable 
inference  from  past  history;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  a 
growing  spirit  of  independence  on  the  part  of  a  consider- 
able fraction  of  the  laity  needs  to  be  taken  into  account. 
Should  this  spirit  become  allied  with  an  ambition  to  look 
into  the  authentic  mirror  of  primitive  Christianity  a  move- 
ment of  considerable  moment  would  be  likely  to  result. 
/""  The  second  expedient  which  needs  to  be  employed  for 
\the  conservation  of  Roman  sacerdotalism  is  a_steadfast 


THE  OUTLOOK  281 

and  comprehensive  employment  of  patronage  in  its  behalf. 
And  here  there  seems  to  be  very  little  ground  for  doubt 
that  the  instrument  of  conservation  will  be  made  to  work 
with  great  effectiveness.  Possessing  by  constitutional 
provision  an  absolute  administrative  authority,  standing 
guard  over  all  episcopal  thrones  by  his  prerogative  to 
confirm  the  nominees,  and  having  immediate  jurisdiction 
over  every  official  in  the  Church,  how  should  the  pope  be 
hindered  from  placing  only  such  men  in  positions  of 
responsibility  as  are  known  to  be  thoroughly  anchored  in 
the  mediaeval  system  and  can  be  trusted  to  be  thoroughly 
proof  against  solicitations  to  liberal  thinking?  In  truth, 
the  danger  of  an  independent  element  getting  into  the 
officiary  of  the  Church,  and  thereby  setting  the  door  ajar 
for  the  incoming  of  innovating  opinions,  appears  to  be 
guarded  against  in  a  most  effective  manner.  Still,  per- 
fect assurance  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  afforded  even  from 
this  point  of  view,  since  it  is  possible  for  men  to  undergo 
some  change  after  being  installed  in  office,  and  it  might 
conceivably  happen  that  a  sufficient  number  should  concur 
in  a  given  change  to  make  their  official  decapitation  a  mat- 
ter of  questionable  prudence.  Unlimited  patronage  is  in- 
deed a  most  potent  weapon  in  the  hands  of  the  pope ;  but 
it  falls  short  of  omnipotence,  and  there  is  a  possibility  that 
the  spread  of  democratic  sentiments  in  the  secular  sphere 
may  breed  ultimately  somewhat  of  a  distaste  for  a  cen- 
tralized absolutism  in  the  ecclesiastical  sphere. 
/The  remaining  expedient  consists  in  ajgdicaj  scheme 
of  intellectual  surveillance  and  restriction.  Works  not 
congenially  related  to  the  sacerdotal  standpoint,  whether 
in  the  line  of  biblical  criticism,  history,  or  philosophy, 
must  be  kept  out  of  the  hands  of  the  faithful,  and  Catholic 


282  THE   ROMAN    TYPE 

minds  must  be  safeguarded  against  the  subtle  and  pene- 
trating influences  which  are  abroad  in  the  world  of  mod- 
ern thought.  Can  this  be  accomplished?  One  thing  is 
certain :  it  cannot  be  accomplished  without  a  serious  offset 
to  the  apparent  victory.  In  proportion  as  men  are  shut 
away  from  the  real  world  and  tied  up  to  a  dictated  sys- 
tem they  become  enfeebled  in  their  capacity  to  defend 
against  an  aggressive  and  wide-awake  criticism  the  very 
system  to  which  they  are  sacrificed.  As  respects  the  pos- 
sibility of  accomplishing  adequately  the  task  of  repression 
and  isolation,  there  is  room  for  some  measure  of  doubt. 
Nothing  can  be  clearer  than  the  fact  that  the  movement 
stigmatized  in  recent  papal  manifestoes  as  "modernism" 
was  vetoed  in  advance  by  the  Syllabus  of  Errors  of  Pius 
IX  and  the  dogmas  of  the  Vatican  Council.  It  came  in 
across  a  mighty  breastwork  which  had  been  erected  to 
bar  it  out.  It  may  not  command  a  steadfast  following 
large  enough  to  be  capable  of  anything-  like  successful 
resistance  to  the  authority  which  has  put  it  under  the  ban, 
but  its  appearance  is  in  itself  ominous  of  difficulty  for  the 
hierarchy  in  carrying  out  its  scheme  of  surveillance  and 
restriction. 

We  deem  it  venturesome  to  make  definite  prophecies 
the  future  of  Roman  sacerdotalism.  To  maintain  it 
intact  in  the  face  of  critical  and  scientific  research  is  a 
.desperate  project.  A  powerful  hierarchy  is  engaged  to 
work  desperately  to  carry  through  the  desperate  project. 
It  cannot  retreat  without  relinquishing  its  claim  to  in- 
fallible authority,  and  to  do  that  would  amount  to  giving 
up  everything,  since  the  whole  structure  of  Roman 
Catholicism  rests  confessedly  on  the  foundation  of  the 
infallible  authority  of  the  hierarchy. 


THE   OUTLOOK  283 

In  closing  this  part  of  the  volume  it  may  be  a  matter  of 
prudence  to  remind  the  reader  that  we  have  been  consid- 
ering the  papal  Church  on  the  side  most  exposed  to  chal- 
lenge and  criticism,  the  side  of  an  ultra  sacerdotalism. 
What  has  been  said  by  no  means  implies  that  the  complex 
system  of  Roman  Catholicism  does  not  afford  to  its  sub- 
jects means  of  advance  toward  saintship  through  the  con- 
templation   of    many    wholesome   truths    and    beautiful 
ideals.     The  author  thankfully  confesses  both  that  he  is\ 
perfectly  content  to  take  a  long  line  of  anathemas  pro-! 
nounced  by  the  supreme  authority  of  the  Roman  Catholic! 
Church,  and  that  he  gladly  recognizes  in  that  Church  aj 
long  line  of  men  and  women  in  whom  the  spirit  of  love,; 
self-denial,   and  true  devoutness  has  come  to  eminent5 
manifestation.     The  things  which  especially  revolt  his 
mind  are  the  towering  falsities  of  the  sacerdotal  system 
and   the   despotic   obscurantism   which    is  in   perpetual 
demand  for  their  maintenance. 


PART  II 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  GREEK  TYPE,  ESPECIALLY  AS  REPRESENTED 
IN   RUSSIA 

I.  —  SCOPE  OF  DEVELOPMENTS  IN  THE  NINETEENTH 
CENTURY 


N  leaving  Roman  Catholicism  we  pass  from  the  mo- 

/narchic  type  of  sacerdotalism  to  the  aristocratic,  from  the 
system  which  concentrates  authority  in  a  single  ecclesi- 
astical magnate  to  that  which  distributes  it  among  a  plu- 
rality. Within  the  domain  of  the  latter  type  the  most 
important  development  in  the  preceding  century  was  the 
high-church  or  Anglo-Catholic  movement  which  occurred 
in  the  established  Church  of  England  and  in  communions 
closely  associated  therewith  by  historical  antecedents  and 
the  possession  of  a  kindred  polity.  Nothing  fairly  com- 
parable to  that  movement,  in  the  way  of  a  new  departure, 
had  place  within  the  bounds  of  the  Greek  Church  (or,  to 
speak  more  precisely,  the  Orthodox  Eastern  Church). 
Outside  of  Russia  the  principal  changes  within  its  sphere 
have  been  incidental  to  the  political  revolutions  by  which 
independent  kingdoms  have  been  established  at  the  ex- 
pense of  Turkish  sovereignty.  As  regards  dogmatic  con- 
ceptions and  the  tenor  of  ecclesiastical  management,  no 
very  marked  developments  seem  to  have  been  recorded 
for  the  Greek  Church  in  any  of  these  kingdoms. 
•.  •  In  Russia,  which  comprises  much  the  greater  part  of 
/  the  Greek  Church,  the  impact  of  outside  influences  served 
Vin  some  degree  as  a  diversifying  agency.  Among  these 

287 


288  THE    GREEK    TYPE 

influences  points  of  view  borrowed  from  Protestantism 
had  a  place.  The  aggregate  result  derived  from  this 
quarter  may  not  have  been  large;  but  it  appears  in  evi- 
dence that  representatives  of  the  Russian  clergy,  some  of 
whom  were  men  of  high  standing,  were  favorably  dis- 
posed to  one  side  or  another  of  the  ideals  of  the  Reforma- 
tion. On  the  whole,  it  seems  worth  while  to  take  the 
testimony  of  a  few  witnesses  relative  to  the  presence  and 
the  effect  of  a  Protestant  element  in  Russian  ecclesiastical 
thinking  for  the  period  under  review. 

For  the  first  part  of  the  century  we  have  a  witness  in 
William  Palmer,  of  Magdalen  College,  Oxford,  who, 
during  a  visit  to  Russia  in  1840-41,  was  favored  with 
large  opportunities  for  securing  information.  From 
Count  Pratasoff  he  received  this  statement:  "We  have 
had  a  Calvinistic  or  Protestant  spirit  among  us,  which 
Platon  began ;  Philaret  (the  present  Metropolitan  of  Mos- 
cow) was  somewhat  that  way  inclined;  and  especially 
Michael,  the  late  Metropolitan  of  Kieff.  But  this  has  all 
been  corrected,  and  now  there  is  an  orthodox  reaction. 
We  said  to  the  Metropolitan  of  Moscow,  that  if  he  wished 
to  show  himself  a  good  Christian  and  humble,  he  would, 
with  the  assistance  of  his  brethren,  retouch  and  correct 
his  own  former  catechism;  and  this  he  did,  correcting  it 
and  filling  up  his  former  omissions."1  Prince  Alexander 
Galitsin  gave  a  concurring  testimony  both  as  to  the  pres- 
ence recently  of  a  Protestantizing  spirit  in  some  of  the 
Russian  divines  and  as  to  a  corrective  having  been  admin- 
istered.2 Mouravieff  spoke  of  the  leaning  to  Protes- 
tantism which  came  to  a  conspicuous  manifestation  in 


1  Notes  of  a  Visit  to  the  Russian  Church  in  the  Years  1840,  1841,  p.   119. 
« Ibid.,  p.  137. 


SCOPE    OF    DEVELOPMENTS  289 

the  reigns  of  Peter  III  and  Catharine  II,  but  considered 
that  it  had  been  remedied  by  a  widespread  reaction.1  On 
the  other  hand,  a  monk  with  whom  Palmer  conversed 
spoke  of  the  secular  priests  as  being  still  very  much  in- 
fected with  liberalism.  "Our  clergy,"  he  said,  "are  most 
accessible  of  all  in  the  world  to  new  and  strange  opinions. 
They  read  books  written  by  heterodox  or  unbelieving 
foreigners,  Lutherans  and  others."2  Individuals  among 
the  priests  thus  commented  upon  admitted  that  a  relative 
lack  of  a  native  theological  literature  gave  much  occasion 
to  the  reading  of  foreign  books,  whether  Catholic  or  Prot- 
estant. Some  of  them,  too,  made  bold  to  assert  a  more 
liberal  theory  of  the  Church  than  that  advocated  by  the 
Anglo-Catholic  visitor  himself.  Thus  in  a  colloquy 
which  he  had  with  an  archpriest  the  latter  said :  "When 
it  is  evident  that  churches  and  societies  excommunicated 
by  the  Orthodox  Church  have  erred  in  such  various  de- 
grees, and  that  so  many  men  have  attained  in  them  so 
high  a  degree  of  divine  grace,  when  the  grace  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  has  so  shone  in  their  lives  and  deeds  and  writings, 
how  can  we  do  otherwise  than  acknowledge  them  for 
Christians?  For  my  part  I  cannot  think  of  such  men  as 
Thomas  a  Kempis  among  the  Latins  and  Arndt  among 
the  Lutherans,  in  whose  writings  I  find  the  love  of  Christ 
and  a  glowing  piety,  as  heretics  to  be  consigned  to  perdi- 
tion. I  shrink  from  the  very  notion  of  a  man  in  the 
Church,  perhaps  barely,  coldly,  intellectually  orthodox, 
judging  such  Christians  whose  regeneration  and  spiritual 
life  are  so  evident."3  A  still  broader  ecclesiasticism 
seems  to  have  been  represented  by  the  Princess  Mes- 


i  Notes  of  a  Visit  to  the  Russian  Church  in  the  Years  1840,  1841,  p.  337. 
•  Ibid.,  p.  306.  » Ibid.,  pp.  369,  370. 


290  THE    GREEK    TYPE 

chersky.    "I  believe,"  she  said,  "in  the  inner  or  essential 
Church,  which  is  agreeable  to  the  Bible,  and  as  for  par- 
ticular outward  Churches  none  of  them  are  perfect."1 
Views   equally   remote   from   an   exclusive   devotion   to 
Eastern  orthodoxy  were  declared  to  be  common  among 
university  professors  and  students.2    In  summing  up  theA 
results  of  his  investigations  Palmer  said  relative  to  the 
Russian  clergy :  "They  are  not  clear  respecting  the  defini-  i 
tion  of  the  visible  Catholic  Church,  but  are  either  vaguely/ 
liberal  or  narrowly  Greek."3 

A  witness  from  a  little  later  point  in  the  century, 
namely,  Ivan  Gagarin,  who  was  converted  to  Romanism 
in  1843,  nas  testified  to  the  presence  in  the  Russian  estab- 
lishment of  a  considerable  amount  of  Protestantism.  He 
notices  that  in  the  list  of  text-books  for  theological  stu- 
dents, which  was  announced  in  1809,  Protestant  works, 
including  the  dogmatic  treatises  of  Buddeus  and  Turretin, 
found  a  place,  and  that  some  of  the  students  who  went 
through  this  sort  of  a  curriculum  came  to  positions  of 
large  influence.4  He  calls  attention  also  to  the  fact  that 
the  highest  ecclesiastical  tribunal  in  Russia,  the  Synod, 
when  in  1816  the  matter  of  converting  a  Prussian  prin- 
cess to  the  orthodoxy  professed  by  her  husband-elect  was 
pending,  gave  this  direction  to  the  party  charged  with 
instructing  the  princess:  "In  the  exposition  of  the  dog- 
matical teaching  of  the  Greco-Russian  Church,  it  must  be 
explained  with  the  greatest  care  that  the  Church  recog- 
nizes the  Word  of  God  contained  in  the  Holy  Scriptures 
as  the  only  and  perfectly  sufficient  rule  of  faith  and  of 
Christian  life,  and  as  the  sole  measure  of  truth;  that  it 

'  Notes  of  a  Visit  to  the  Russian  Church  in  the  Years  1840,  1841,  p.  499. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  312.  •  Ibid,,  pp.  359,  360. 

4  The  Russian  Clergy,  Eng.  trans.,  1872,  pp.  122-125. 


2QI 

doubtless  reverences  the  tradition  of  the  primitive  Church, 
but  only  so  far  as  it  is  found  accordant  with  Holy  Scrip- 
ture; and  finally,  that  from  this  pure  tradition  it  draws 
noj:  new  dogmas  of  faith,  but  edifying  opinions,  as  also 
directions,  for  ecclesiastical  discipline."1  This  incident, 
our  informant  contends,  may  be  taken  without  extrava- 
gance as  an  index  of  a  Protestantizing  movement  which 
has  made  no  little  progress,  especially  in  the  ranks  of  the 
secular  clergy.  "Without  doubt,"  he  says,  "the  doctrines 
professed  by  the  Greek  and  the  Russian  Church  were  not 
the  least  Protestant  in  the  world;  but  it  cannot  be  dis- 
puted that,  for  a  century  past,  a  work  has  been  going  on 
among  the  Russian  clergy  separating  them  more  and  more 
from  their  old  traditions,  and  drawing  them  every  day 
nearer  and  nearer  to  the  Protestant  ministers."2  As  an 
advocate  of  the  superior  claims  of  Roman  Catholicism, 
Gagarin  may  have  had  a  motive  to  make  the  most  of  the 
intrusion  of  Protestant  heterodoxy  into  the  Russian 
Church ;  but  his  testimony  may  be  taken  as  indicating  at 
least  the  presence  of  an  appreciable  measure  of  Protes- 
tantizing influence. 

At  the  end  of  the  century  a  well-informed  witness 
serves  us  in  the  person  of  Leroy-Beaulieu.  He  notices, 
in  conformity  with  some  of  the  statements  made  to 
Palmer,  that  a  relative  arrest  of  Protestant  and  evangeli- 
cal tendencies  took  place  from  the  period  when  Philaret 
(in  the  reign  of  Nicholas  I,  1825-55)  was  constrained  toy 
rewrite  his  catechism.  "The  Russian  Church  from  that 
time,"  he  says,  "ceased  to  turn  its  helm  toward  Luther 
or  toward  Anglicanism;  it  stopped  midway  on  the  road 
on  which  Peter  the  Great  and  his  successors  had  started 

i  The  Russian  Clergy,  Eng.  trans.,  1872,  pp.  125,  126.  *  Ibid.,  132- 


292  THE    GREEK    TYPE 

it,  and  has  been  careful  ever  since  to  keep  strictly  to  the 
principle  of  traditional  immobility."  But  while  this  has 
been  the  general  aim  of  the  ecclesiastical  administration, 
it  has  not  been  fully  carried  out.  "Protestant  ideas  are 
to  this  day  in  great  favor  with  a  portion  of  the  clergy,  as 
a  rule  the  most  cultivated.  This  comes  from  studying 
Protestant  schools  and  books,  and  partly  also  from  the 
late  revival  of  theological  studies  generally,  and  the 
efforts  which  have  been  made  to  raise  the  intellectual  level 
of  the  clergy.  The  spirit  of  the  Reformation  is  quietly 
stealing  its  way  into  seminaries  and  ecclesiastical  acade- 
mies along  with  the  works  of  German  theologians.  The 
same  with  laymen,  at  least  those  of  the  educated  classes. 
Many  of  these — and  often  the  most  devout — are  nothing 
but  Protestant  ritualists,  though  they  do  not  know  it." 
Still,  it  should  be  observed  that  these  innovating  tenden- 
cies are  kept  within  bounds.  "There  is  nothing  to  com- 
pare to  the  antagonism  of  the  two  or  three  parties  into 
which  the  Anglican  Church  is  divided."1 

Aside  from  the  force  of  dogmatic  conviction  strong 
practical  motives  operate  with  the  Russians  as  a  check 
upon  departure  from  the  inherited  system.  It  is  felt,  on 
the  one  hand,  that  any  noticeable  change  would  be  likely 
to  reinforce  the  ranks  of  the  conservative  schismatics,  the 
Raskolniki,  who  number  several  millions.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  is  a  conviction  that  the  old  orthodoxy  is  a 
principal  bond  of  connection  between  Russia  and  the  out- 
side branches  of  the  Eastern  Church,  and  that  conse- 
quently any  noticeable  departure  from  the  ancient  eccle- 
siastical lines  would  endanger  a  loss  of  influence  within 
the  domains  of  these  branches.  Thus  it  results  that  those 

»  The  Empire  of  the  Tsars  and  Russians,  III.  81,  83. 


SCOPE    OF    DEVELOPMENTS  293 

who  cannot  boast  of  any  great  amount  of  orthodox  zeal, 
who  even  are  much  inclined  to  freethinking,  as  is  the 
case  with  not  a  few  of  the  nobles,  are  rather  friendly  than 
otherwise  to  the  ancestral  type  of  state  religion.  "As 
far  as  religion  is  concerned,"  said  a  society  woman  of 
Moscow,  "I  am  simply  a  Christian,  unattached  to  any 
denomination.  If  anything,  I  am  rather  drawn  toward 
Protestantism.  But  as  a  Russian  I  am  passionately 
Orthodox."1  This  instance  may  serve  to  illustrate  how 
the'patriotic  motive  operates  to  reconcile  to  the  established 
religion  people  who  otherwise  would  be  inclined  to  an 
attitude  of  indifference  or  hostility. 

In  connection  with  the  variation  from  the  prevailing 
type  of  Eastern  orthodoxy  which  we  have  been  con- 
sidering, it  should  be  remembered  that  the  strictly  author- 
itative standards  of  the  Russian  Church  are  somewhat 
limited,  being  confined  to  the  decisions  of  the  first  seven/ 
ecumenical  councils.  Other  standards,  containing  a 
much  larger  amount  of  dogmatic  detail,  such  as  the 
Orthodox  Confession  of  Faith,  composed  by  Peter 
Mogilas,  and  the  Eighteen  Decrees  of  the  Synod  of 
Jerusalem,  composed  by  Dositheus,  are  indeed  treated 
with  deference;  but  they  are  not  regarded  as  beyond 
amendment.  Only  the  decisions  of  the  ecumenical  coun- 
cils, representative  of  the  undivided  Church,  are  credited 
with  an  infallibility  which  makes  them  binding  upon  the 
conscience.  The  lines,  therefore,  which  circumscribe  per- 
missible doctrinal  thinking  are  less  closely  drawn  in  the 
Russian  communion  than  they  are  in  the  Church  of  Rome. 
A  somewhat  rigorous  and  grudging  censorship,  it  is  true, 
may  restrict  the  free  publication  of  personal  convictions ; 

1  Leroy-Beaulieu,  III.  47. 


294  THE    GREEK    TYPE 

/but  that  does  not  import  that  the  convictions  may  not  be 
with  a  good  conscience^  Over  against  the  subjects 
'of  papal  jurisdiction  the  Russian  apologist  is  able  to 
affirm  :  "Even  when  we  are  condemned  by  our  bishops,  or 
reduced  to  silence  by  their  censure,  our  opinions,  our 
consciences,  still  remain  freer  than  yours.  The  decisions 
of  the  Holy  Synod  of  Petersburgh,  or  of  the  Patriarchate 
of  Constantinople,  can  have  only  a  local  value:  neither 
claims  to  be  infallible.  We  have  no  equivalent  for  your 
Roma  locuta  est;  we  have  no  judge  with  authority  over 
consciences  to  be  compared  with  that  of  the  pope  or  of 
the  congregations  instituted  by  him;  we  know  nothing 
of  those  censures  without  appeal  to  which  a  Fenelon 
submits,  and  which  a  Lamennais  resists  only  at  the  price 
of  leaving  the  Church.  Here,  in  Russia,  our  spiritual 
censure  is  hardly  more  than  a  matter  of  ecclesiastical 
police."1 

The  witnesses  from  whom  we  have  cited  have  indicated 
that  men  of  eminence  in  the  Russian  Church  have  been 
ready  to  make  some  use  of  their  liberty,  under  the  stand- 
ards, to  give  expression  to  views  more  or  less  divergent 
from  currect  traditions.  But  they  have  also  indicated 
that  these  men  have  been  held  in  check  by  governmental 
policy  and  by  the  immobility  of  the  great  mass  of  priests 
and  people.  We  seem  to  be  required,  therefore,  neither 
to  ignore  the  action  of  a  diversifying  agency  in  the 
province  of  doctrinal  thought  within  the  Russian  Church, 
nor  to  make  of  it  overgenerous  account.  As  enforcing 
the  latter  requirement  two  further  facts  are  deserving  of 
mention.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  the 
Russian  Church,  in  common  with  the  rest  of  Eastern 

J  Leroy-Beaulieu,  III.  61,  62. 


SCOPE    OF    DEVELOPMENTS  295 

Christianity,  has  indicated  very  little  disposition  to  make 
any  concessions  for  the  sake  of  union  with  other  parties. 
Her  prelates,  it  is  true,  have  been  less  ready  than  those 
of  the  Roman  Church  to  put  forth  the  lordly  pretense  to 
sole  ecclesiastical  validity.  They  have  never  condemned 
Anglican  orders;  on  the  contrary,  they  have  given  a 
more  or  less  positive  recognition  of  them.1  Nevertheless, 
in  negotiations  for  union,  whether  with  the  Anglicans  or 
the  Old  Catholics,  they  have  generally  spoken  as  men  fully 
conscious  that  Christianity  in  its  pure  form  was  with 
them,  so  that  union  could  not  be  seriously  discussed 
except  on  the  basis  of  conformity  to  their  existing 
doctrinal  system."2  In  the  second  place,  it  is  not  to  be 
overlooked  that  the  more  distinguished  representatives 
of  a  leaning  to  the  Protestant  standpoint  do  not  seem 
to  have  been  inclined  to  modify  materially  the  pro- 
nounced sacerdotalism  embodied  in  the  traditional 
sacramental  teaching.  Logically  some  modification 
may  have  been  involved  in  one  or  another  of  their 
conceptions,  but  formally  it  does  not  appear  to  have 
been  made  by  them.  The  points  wherein  they  have\ 
affiliated  with  Protestantism  respect  more  particularly  the  \ 
primacy  of  the  Bible,  its  sufficiency  as  a  compendium  of 
doctrines  necessary  to  salvation,  and  the  supereminence  I 
of  faith  as  a  condition  of  justification.  On  each  of  these"\ 
topics  one  may  detect  something  of  the  tone  of  the J 
Reformers.  Thus  Bishop  Konissky,  in  a  treatise  on  the 
Duty  of  Parish  Priests,  which  was  first  printed  in  1776, 
affirmed :  "We  hold  the  Word  of  God,  that  is,  the  books 
of  the  Old  and  the  New  Testaments,  as  the  source, 

1  Hore,  Student's  History  of  the  Greek  Church,  p.  476. 
8  Headlam,   Essay  on  Relations  with  the  Eastern  Churches,  in  Church 
Problems,  edited  by  Henson,  1900. 


296  THE    GREEK    TYPE 

foundation,  and  perfect  rule  both  of  our  holy  faith  and  of 
the  good  works  of  the  law.  .  .  .  Neither  the  writings  of 
the  holy  fathers  nor  the  traditions  of  the  Church  are  to 
be  confounded  or  equaled  with  the  Word  of  God  and  his 
commandments :  for  the  Word  of  God  is  one  thing ;  but 
the  writings  of  the  holy  fathers  and  traditions 
ecclesiastical  are  another."1  A  shade  more  of  respect  is 
paid  to  tradition  in  the  wording  of  the  catechism  of 
Philaret,  but  it  is  subordinated  quite  distinctly  to 
Scripture.  "We  must  follow,"  it  is  said,  "that  tradition 
which  agrees  with  divine  revelation  and  Holy  Scripture." 
On  the  office  of  faith  we  have  the  following  strong 
declaration  from  Platon :  "This  faith  is  called  justifying 
faith,  because  through  it  man  is  accounted  just  before 
God ;  yea,  is  accounted  as  such,  according  to  the  doctrine 
of  Paul,  without  the  works  of  the  law.  For  how  is  it 
possible  for  man  to  have  any  part  in  his  own  justification, 
when  it  is  impossible  to  be  justified  in  any  other  way  than 
by  first  confessing  our  guilt  before  God,  and  that  we 
have  merited  his  wrath?  However,  those  who  are 
justified  by  faith  must  prove  the  same,  and  give  evidence 
of  their  justification,  by  obeying  the  holy  law  of  God."2 
Sentences  like  these  would  appear  suitably  located  in  a 
book  of  evangelical  Protestant  teaching.  But,  as  has 
been  intimated,  their  authors  have  not  gone  on  record  as 
interested  to  retrench  appreciably  from  the  high-church 
conceptions  which  were  current  in  their  communion 
respecting  the  necessity  and  the  efficacy  of  the  sacraments. 
We  have  thus  to  take  account  of  a  limitation  upon  the 
import,  for  our  theme,  of  the  freer  type  of  theological 


1  Trans,  by  Blackmore,  1845. 

1  Summary  of  Christian  Divinity,  trans,  by  Pinkerton,  1815. 


POLITY    IN    THEORY    AND    PRACTICE  297 

thinking  which  had  its  representatives  in  the  Russian 
Church  in  the  nineteenth  century. 

II. — POLITY  IN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

The  kingdoms  formed  during  the  nineteenth  century 
within  the  ancient  domain  of  the  patriarchate  of 
Constantinople  have  taken  their  ecclesiastical  model  from 
Russia  both  as  respects  inde^ndencejiomjhej^urisdiction 
of  the  patriarch  and  as  respects  synodal  organization. 
In  the  empire  of  the  Czar  the  feature  of  independence 
was  adopted  in  1588-89,  when  the  Metropolitan  of 
Moscow  was  made  patriarch.  The  synodal  organization 
which  involved  the  abolition  of  the  patriarchal  dignity 
and  the  vesting  of  the  supreme  ecclesiastical  authority 
in  a  body  termed  the  Holy  Synod,  was  introduced  in  T 
by  Peter  the  Great.  A  closely  resembling  constitution 
was  formulated  in  1833  by  the  clergy  of  the  recently 
established  kingdom  of  Greece.  According  to  the  tenor 
of  their  action,  "the  Orthodox  and  Apostolic  Church  of 
Greece,  whilst  it  preserves  dogmatic  unity  with  the  East- 
ern Orthodox  Churches,  is  dependent  on  no  external 
authority;  and  spiritually  owns  no  head  but  the  Founder 
of  the  Christian  faith.  In  the  external  government,  which 
belongs  to  the  crown,  she  acknowledges  the  king  of  Greece 
as  her  supreme  head."  The^sacred  synod,  it  was  further 
stated,  was  to  be  wholly  composed  of  prelates  appointed 
by  the  king,  and  was  to  rank  as  the  highest  ecclesiastical 
ajothorrty,  and  its  sittings  were  to  be  attended  by  a  royal 
delegate^_who  though  without  a  vote  should  give  his 
signature  to  all  its  decisions  as  a  condition  of  their 
yajid2jgjr~ln  the  constitution  granted  in  1864  relation 

1  Hore,  Student's  History  of  the  Greek  Church,  p.  457. 


298  THE    GREEK    TYPE 

with  the  Eastern  Church  in  general  was  recognized  in 
these  terms :  "The  Orthodox  Church  of  Greece,  acknowl- 
edging for  its  Head  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  is  indissolubly 
united  in  doctrine  with  the  great  Church  of  Constantino- 
ple, and  with  every  other  Church  holding  the  same  doc- 
trines, observing,  as  they  invariably  do,  the  holy  apostolic 
and  synodal  canons  and  holy  traditions."  A  parallel 
scheme  as  respects  interior  arrangements  and  outward 
relations  was  adopted  in  Roumania,  Servia,  and  Bul- 
garia. Thus  it  appears  that  in  the  sphere  of  the  Greek 
Church  the  principle  of  national  establishments  is  pre- 
dominant. Between  the  several  branches  of  that  Church 
the  chief  bonds  are  adhesion  to  the  same  doctrinal  stand- 
ards and  heirship  to  a  common  body  of  historical  associa- 
tions. They  constitute  rather  a  confederacy  of  Churches 
than  a  strict  ecclesiastical  unity. 

The  Holy  Synod  of  Russia  as  first  constituted  con- 
sisted of  four  bishops,  seven  archimandrites  (or  abbots), 
and  two  priests.  More  recently  the  membership  of  the 
Synod  has  been  confined  to  bishops  with  the  exception 
of  two  priests,  one  of  whom  is  the  Czar's  confessor  and 
the  other  the  chief  chaplain  of  the  army  and  the  fleet. 
A  layman  bearing  the  title  of  Chief  Procurator  attends 
the  meetings  of  the  body,  and  acts  as  an  intermediary 
between  it  and  the  Czar.  Though  without  a  vote,  the 
Chief  Procurator  is  a  potent  official  in  the  ecclesiastical 
assembly. 

The  prerogatives  of  the  Holy  Synod  have  been  described 
as  follows:  "It  is  its  duty  to  care  for  purity  of  doctrine 
and  good  order  in  worship;  to  oppose  heresies  and 
schisms;  to  prove  narratives  relating  to  the  saints;  to 
root  out  all  superstitions ;  to  watch  over  the  preaching  of 


299 

the  Divine  Word;  to  select  worthy  men  for  the  chief 
pastoral  positions  and  to  place  them  therein ;  to  give  such 
the  needful  counsels  in  doubtful  matters,  and  to  pass  upon 
the  complaints  of  those  who  are  dissatisfied  with  the 
management  of  their  ecclesiastical  superiors.  In  par- 
ticular to  it  belongs  supervision  over  all  institutions  for 
the  education  of  the  clergy,  the  censorship  of  religious 
writings,  the  critical  inspection  of  relics  and  miracles,  as 
also  the  associated  function  of  canonizing.  Its  jurisdic- 
tion covers  doubtful  marriages,  or  those  contracted  within 
the  forbidden  degrees,  and  likewise  cases  of  divorce.  In 
general,  whatever  pertains  to  the  doctrine,  worship,  and 
administration  of  the  national  Church  falls  under  the  care 
and  judgment  of  the  Synod."1  With  respect  to  the  selec- 
tion of  the  chief  pastors,  or  bishops,  it  should  be  noted 
that  this  function  is  shared  with  the  Czar.  Customarily 
the  Synod  presents  the  names  of  three  candidates,  and 
from  these  the  Czar  makes  the  final  choice. 

Doubtless  a  prominent  motive  with  Peter  the  Great  for 
putting  the  Synod  in  place  of  the  patriarchate  was  the 
conviction  that  such  a  body,  composed  as  it  is  of  a  variety 
of  clerical  factors,  would  be  much  less  liable  to  get  into 
conflict  with  the  administration  of  the  State  than  would 
a  single  prelate  exalted  to  a  position  of  ecclesiastical  head- 
ship. Nor  can  it  be  disputed  that  his  judgment  was 
worthy  of  his  practical  sagacity.  The  Synod,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  has  served  as  a  congenial  ally  of  the  absolutist 
monarchy  of  Russia.  But  the  saying  of  this  much  by  no 
means  imports  that  as  an  institution  the  Synod  is  not 
well  adapted  to  make  connection  with  a  more  liberal  form 

1  Philaret,  Geschichte  der  Kirche  Russlands,  ins  Deutsche  ubersetzt  von 
Blumenthal,  II.  174. 


300  THE    GREEK    TYPE 

of  government.  It  accords  with  the  traditions  of  Greek 
Christianity  generally  to  pay  large  respect  to  the  su- 
premacy of  the  State. 

As  respects  the  bearing  of  the  autocratic  sovereignty 
of  the  Czar  upon  ecclesiastical  matters  somewhat  diverse 
judgments  have  been  rendered.  On  the  one  side,  it  is  con- 
tended that  this  sovereignty  is  perfectly  overshadowing, 
and  reduces  all  spiritual  authority  to  a  purely  instrumental 
position.  Advocates  of  Roman  polity,  among  others, 
give  emphatic  expression  to  this  judgment.  Thus  Ga- 
garin remarks :  "The  Russian  clergy  has  not  strength 
enough  to  contend  with  the  government.  Long  ago  it 
renounced  all  power  of  originating  action,  and  abdicated 
all  independence.  .  .  .  The  Russian  Church  is  not  sub- 
jected, she  is  absorbed  by  the  State:  she  is  an  inert  in- 
strument, a  body  without  a  soul."1  In  this  point  of  view 
the  Czar  is  a  lay  pope,  and  as  such  quite  as  truly  master 
of  the  Russian  Church  as  the  bishop  of  Rome  is  of  the 
Latin  Church.  "The  real  and  effectual  ruler  of  the  Rus- 
sian Church,"  says  Tondini,  "is  the  Czar."2  In  confirma- 
tion of  this  line  of  assertions  reference  is  made  to  the 
language  which  is  found  in  the  Russian  code  and  in  the 
interpretations  of  Russian  jurists.  That  language,  it 
must  be  admitted,  gives  a  broad  scope  to  imperial  pre- 
rogatives. As  reported  by  Palmer  it  includes  these  very 
significant  specifications:  "i.  The  emperor,  as  a  Christian 
sovereign,  is  the  supreme  defender  and  guardian  of  the 
dogmas  of  the  dominant  faith,  and  the  preserver  of 
orthodoxy  and  of  all  good  order  in  the  holy  Church.  In 

1  The  Russian  Church,  pp.  7,  262.  Compare  Fortescue,  The  Orthodox 
Eastern  Church,  1907,  pp.  295—297. 

*The  Pope  of  Rome  and  the  Popes  of  the  Oriental  Orthodox  Church, 
1871,  p.  21. 


POLITY    IN    THEORY    AND    PRACTICE  301 

this  sense  the  emperor  is  called  the  head  of  the  Church. 
2.  In  the  government  of  the  Church  the  autocratic  power 
acts  through  the  most  holy  governing  and  directing 
Synod  instituted  by  it.  3.  The  original  design  of  laws 
proceeds  either  from  special  intention  and  direct  com- 
mand of  his  supreme  Majesty,  or  it  arises  out  of  the  or- 
dinary course  of  affairs,  when  during  the  consideration  of 
them  in  the  governing  Synod,  and  the  ministries,  it  is 
considered  necessary  either  to  explain  and  supplement  any 
existing  law,  or  to  draw  up  a  new  enactment.  In  this 
case  these  different  authorities  subject  their  projects,  ac- 
cording to  the  established  order,  to  the  supreme  judgment 
of  his  Majesty."1 

On  the  other  side,  emphasis  is  placed  upon  the  limita- 
tions which  attach  to  the  notion  of  the  imperial  headship. 
That  headship,  it  is  claimed,  falls  out  of  comparison  with 
the  dogmatic  and  administrative  supremacy  which  in 
Latin  Christendom  is  assigned  to  the  pope.  It  is  a  com- 
monplace in  Russian  theological  teaching  that,  properly 
speaking,  Christ  is  the  sole  head  of  the  Church.  Even 
the  seventeenth  century  creeds  strongly  assert  this,  not- 
withstanding the  spirit  of  opposition  to  Protestantism  by 
which  they  were  inspired.2  It  is  clear,  then,  that  Platon 
and  Philaret  were  not  speaking  specially  in  the  character 
of  liberals  when  they  uttered  the  conviction  that  Christ 
alone  can  appropriately  be  acknowledged  as  head  of  the 
Church.  "Of  pastors,"  said  the  former,  "some  are 
greater,  such  as  bishops,  and  others  are  lesser,  such  as 
presbyters  or  ministers.  Christ  alone  is  the  head  of  the 
church  government  and  service,  because,  as  he  is  the 

1  Notes  of  a  Visit  to  the  Russian  Church,  pp.  104,  105. 
3  Confession  of  Dositheus,  decree  X ;  Orthodox  Confession  by  Mogilas, 
quest.  Ixxxv. 


302  THE    GREEK    TYPE 

founder  of  his  Church,  so  he  is  her  only  independent 
governor,  who  ruleth  her  invisibly  by  his  word  and  spirit. 
Consequently  in  all  matters  respecting  the  essence  of 
faith,  the  Church  can  obey  no  one  except  himself,  and  the 
evident  testimony  of  the  Word  of  God."1  "The  Church," 
wrote  Philaret,  "as  the  body  of  Christ,  can  have  no  other 
head  than  Jesus  Christ.  The  Church,  being  designed  to 
abide  through  all  generations  of  time,  needs  also  an  ever- 
abiding  head ;  and  such  is  Jesus  Christ  alone.  Wherefore, 
also,  the  apostles  take  no  higher  title  than  that  of  min- 
isters of  the  Church."2  It  follows  that  in  any  reference 
which  the  code  may  make  to  the  headship  of  the  Czar  the 
term  is  understood  simply  in  the  sense  of  external  ad- 
ministration. He  is  not  supposed  to  be  the  head  of  the 
Russian  Church  in  such  manner  as  the  pope  is  recognized 
by  his  subjects  to  be  the  head  of  the  Roman  Church.  "No 
Russian,  no  member  of  any  Orthodox  Church,  admits 
such  a  thing  for  a  moment."3 

Along  with  this  limitation  upon  the  recognized  office 
of  the  Czar  in  the  ecclesiastical  domain  another  is  to  be 
associated,  namely,  that  which  results  from  the  well- 
established  premise  that  the  ecumenical  council  alone  is 
competent  to  define  and  authoritatively  to  impose  articles 
of  faith.  This  by  itself  puts  the  Czar  in  fundamental 
contrast  with  the  pope.  He  is  no  living  oracle  qualified 
(o  add  new  specifications  to  the  obligatory  creed.  As 
respects  dogma  he  has  no  more  of  a  deciding  voice  than 
the  humblest  of  his  subjects.  Many  of  those  subjects 
may  regard  him  with  a  species  of  religious  veneration, 
but  it  is  no  part  of  the  approved  theory  of  the  Orthodox 


1  Summary  of  Christian  Divinity,  p.  135.  *  Catechism,  quest.  259. 

*  Leroy-Beaulieu,  The  Empire  of  the  Tsars  and  the  Russians,  HI.  166. 


POLITY    IN    THEORY    AND    PRACTICE  303 

Church  of  Russia  that  there  belongs  to  him  any  lordship 
over  matters  of  faith. 

Looking,  then,  to  the  different  aspects  of  the  subject, 
we  conclude  both  that  the  Czar,  in  point  of  administrative 
control,  is  a  mighty  factor  in  the  Russian  Church,  and 
that  his  sovereignty  is  subject  to  important  restrictions 
which  place  it  in  wide  contrast  with  the  power  authori- 
tatively accredited  to  the  pope  in  the  Roman  Church. 
Between  the  autocrat  who,  while  he  treats  the  manage- 
ment of  the  Church  as  falling  very  largely  within  the  de- 
partment of  state  administration,  claims  no  positive  divine 
sanction  for  his  acts,  and  the  pontiff,  who  poses  as  the 
infallible  vicegerent,  competent  to  give  the  law  to  intellect 
and  conscience,  there  is  a  vast  interval.  Moreover,  it  is 
to  be  observed  that  the  actual  exercise  of  imperial  control 
over  ecclesiastical  affairs,  in  the  measure  in  which  it  has 
obtained,  is  not  of  the  essence  of  Russian  church  theory. 
That  theory  may  make  little  room  for  antagonism  to 
the  policy  of  the  State,  but  it  does  not  deny  the  fitness 
and  desirability  of  a  state  administration  which  leaves  to 
the  spiritual  authorities  of  the  Church  a  good  degree  of 
free  movement.  In  any  scheme  of  close  connection  be- 
tween Church  and  State  the  temper  of  the  ruler  is  a  very 
considerable  factor.  Illustration  of  this  truth  can  easily 
be  found  in  the  sphere  of  Latin  Christianity,  as  well  as  in 
the  East.  No  Czar  ever  proceeded  more  imperiously 
than  did  the  first  Napoleon,  and  no  Russian  catechism 
affords  a  parallel  to  the  chapter  on  "Duties  toward  the 
Emperor"  which  had  place  in  the  Napoleonic  catechism. 

While  the  limitation  of  the  province  of  infallibility 
may  be  said  to  favor  religious  tolerance,  the  close  connec- 
tion of  the  Russian  Church  with  an  autocratic  State  gives 


304  THE    GREEK    TYPE 

much  scope  to  restriction  and  repression.  The  law 
recognizes  the  right  of  those  bred  in  dissenting  faiths, 
such  as  the  Lutheran  and  the  Roman  Catholic,  to  practice 
their  religion.  It  hedges  about  this  practice,  however, 
by  certain  regulations,  and  opposes  a  bar  to  propagandism 
within  the  bounds  of  the  Orthodox  Church.  Palmer,  at 
the  time  of  his  visit  (1840-41),  described  governmental 
policy  as  taking  this  line :  "Any  member  of  the  Russian 
Church  joining  another  communion  incurs  the  penalty  of 
civil  death.  On  the  other  hand,  members  of  the  tolerated 
communions  may,  if  they  comply  with  certain  forms,  be 
received  as  proselytes  from  one  to  another ;  and  the  Rus- 
sian Church  may  receive  proselytes  from  them  all.  The 
children,  too,  of  all  mixed  marriages  must  be  bred  up  as 
members  of  the  dominant  Church."1  Since  the  middle  of 
the  century  considerable  concessions  have  been  made  to 
the  so-called  Schismatics  or  Raskolniki.  By  the  laws 
passed  in  1883-84  they  were  granted  within  limits  the 
status  of  a  tolerated  sect;  but  still  enough  of  restriction 
was  left  to  serve  as  an  instrument  of  vexation  in  case  the 
authorities  should  wish  to  resort  to  such.  In  dealing 
with  the  newer  sects  less  consideration  has  been  shown. 
At  times  rigorous  measures  have  been  taken  against 
them.  In  general  the  extent  to  which  the  policy  of  in- 
tolerance is  carried  out  depends  not  a  little  on  the  animus 
of  the  chief  Procurator.  To  the  credit  of  the  clergy,  it 
should  be  noticed  that  in  the  latter  part  of  the  century 
they  began  to  give  better  heed  to  the  demand  for  the  use 
of  spiritual  weapons,  such  as  preaching  and  missionary 
efforts.  Meanwhile,  the  element  of  dissent,  being  large, 


i  Notes  of  a  Visit  to  the  Russian  Church  in  the  Years  1840,  1841,  pp. 
35-  36. 


SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  305 

persistent,  and  variegated,  can  hardly  fail  to  serve  as  a 
means  of  education  on  tolerance.  Possibly  the  outcome 
may  be  like  that  which  was  achieved  in  England  after 
many  generations  of  struggle.  Ecclesiastical  pride  may 
stand  in  the  way  of  such  a  consummation,  but  Russian 
administration  is  at  least  not  debarred  from  moving  to- 
ward it  by  any  ex  cathedra  teaching  on  the  duty  of  coer- 
cing or  destroying  the  heretic. 


III. — THE  CEREMONIAL  AND  SACRAMENTAL  SYSTEM 

"A 

The    state    religion    of    Russia    has    sometimes    been 

charged  in  emphatic  terms  with  formalism.  So  far  as 
the  employment  of  a  very  elaborate  ceremonial,  the  pre- 
scription of  numerous  fasts,  and  the  prodigal  use  of  such 
outward  demonstrations  of  piety  as  the  payment  of  re-  / 
spect  to  sacred  pictures  are  tokens  of  formalism,  the 
charge  would  seem  not  to  be  without  foundation.  It 
stands  in  evidence,  too,  that  at  one  time  or  another  a 
part  at  least  of  the  constituency  of  the  Russian  Church 
has  carried  the  stress  upon  forms  to  the  point  of  intem- 
perate superstition.  Had  not  ceremonies  been  regarded 
as  veritable  instruments  of  magical  effects,  the  item  of 
making  the  sign  of  the  cross  and  giving  the  blessing  with 
two  fingers  instead  of  three  could  never  have  been 
counted  a  fundamental  issue,  as  it  was  by  the  numerous 
company  which  went  out  of  the  Orthodox  Church  and  be- 
came known  as  the  Raskolniki.  Further,  it  cannot  be 
questioned,  that  the  existence  of  a  governmental  requisi- 
tion for  the  reception  of  the  sacrament  at  least  once  a 
year  by  all  Orthodox  Russians — a  requisition  supple- 
mented by  a  direction  to  the  civil  and  military  authorities, 


306  THE    GREEK    TYPE 

as  well  as  to  the  clergy,  to  see  that  it  is  carried  out — is 
better  suited  to  a  perfunctory  than  to  a  spiritual  religion, 
and  so  far  as  it  is  not  a  dead  letter  must  operate  in  favor 
of  that  type.  But,  while  these  considerations  are  not  to 
be  ignored,  it  would  savor  of  unfairness  not  to  join  with 
/-them  certain  admissions.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  to  be 
/  granted  that  the  teaching  of  the  Russian  Church  has  of- 
fered not  a  little  in  the  way  of  correctives  to  a  supersti- 
tious estimate  of  forms.  On  this  point  a  candid  student 
of  that  Church  remarks :  "It  is  essentially  ritualistic,  and 
rigorously  adheres  to  the  practices  of  the  fourth  and  fifth 
centuries.  It  is  often  reproached  with  stifling  the  essence 
of  religious  belief  under  outward  forms.  This  accusation 
is,  however,  true  only  in  part;  and  the  fact,  such  as  it 
exists,  is  attributable  more  to  the  character  and  disposi- 
tion of  the  Slavonic  and  Eastern  races  than  to  any  fault 
of  the  Church;  on  the  contrary,  it  has,  from  the  earliest 
ages,  endeavored  to  guard  against  superstition  and  the 
surreptitiously  degrading  influences  of  the  senses."1  This 
statement  may  perhaps  put  the  case  in  behalf  of  the 
Church  rather  strongly,  but  it  brings  forward  a  considera- 
tion which  must  be  taken  account  of  in  a  fair  judgment. 
In  the  second  place,  it  is  not  to  be  overlooked  that  even 
among  such  classes  of  the  Russian  people  as  think  most 
superstitiously  of  forms,  and  are  given  to  numerous 
vagaries,  some  of  them  derived  from  the  old  paganism  of 
the  country,  much  of  the  life  of  piety  is  still  manifest. 
Leroy-Beaulieu  judges  that  rarely  in  the  lower  classes  of 
the  West  is  the  force  of  religious  motive  so  conspicuously 
revealed  as  it  is  in  the  corresponding  classes  of  Russia.2 


1  Heard.  The  Russian  Church  and  Russian  Dissent,  pp.  144,  145. 
*  The  Empire  of  the  Tsars  and  the  Russians,  III.  38. 


SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  307 

The  extent  to  which  the  New  Testament  is  read  affords  \ 
doubtless  a  part  of  the  explanation  of  this  fact. 

In  relation  to  the  sacraments,  the  Greek  Church  has 
been  much  less  prolific  than  the  Roman  in  dogmatic 
specifications.  On  the  importance,  however,  of  these  rites, 
and  on  the  general  interpretation  of  most  of  them,  the 
one  does  not  appear  to  stand  in  emphatic  contrast  with 
the  other. 

Baptism  is  defined  in  the  Russian  and  in  other  cate- 
chisms^of  the  Greek  Church  as  a  rite  of  remission  and 
regeneration.  In  the  Eighteen  Decrees  by  Dositheus  this 
strong  statement  respecting  its  necessity  occurs :  "We  be- 
lieve holy  baptism,  instituted  by  the  Lord  and  performed 
in  the  name  of  the  Holy  Trinity,  is  in  the  highest  degree 
necessary.  Indeed,  without  it  no  one  can  be  saved  ac- 
cording to  the  saying  of  the  Lord :  Except  one  shall  have 
been  born  of  water  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  he  shall  not  enter 
into  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Therefore  even  for  infants 
it  is  necessary,  as  those  who  also  are  guilty  of  original 
sin  and  are  able  to  be  cleansed  by  baptism  alone."1  How 
far  this  rigorous  and  merciless  view  is  accepted  in  the 
recent  theology  of  the  Greek  Church  we  do  not  find 
indicated  in  our  sources.  Respect  for  patristic  authority 
would  naturally  give  it  a  right  of  way,  for  many  of  the 
fathers  exhibited  a  very  scanty  sense  of  its  awful  im- 
plications. But  it  seems  not  to  have  gained  expression 
in  the  standard  catechisms.  Platon,  it  is  true,  uttered  the 
conviction  that  there  is  no  hope  of  the  salvation  of  the 
man  who  does  not  receive  baptism.  However,  he  adds, 
"not  on  account  of  his  not  having  been  plunged  into 
water,  but  because  he  hath  not  believed  in  the  name  of 

1  Decree  xvi. 


308  THE    GREEK    TYPE 

the  only  begotten  Son  of  God."1    The  qualifying  clause, 
as  implying  that  Platon  was  thinking  of  a  lack  of  bap- 
tism   occasioned   by   unbelief,    cancels   the   warrant   for 
identifying  his  point  of  view  with  that  of  Dositheus.    Ap- 
(     parently  the  Greek  Church  is  less  securely  tied  than  the 
\Roman  to  faith  in  the  damnation  of  unbaptized  infants. 

In  its  exposition  of  the  eucharist  the  Greek  Church, 
judged  by  the  language  of  its  modern  standards,  is  com- 
mitted to  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation.  In  the  cate- 
chism of  Philaret  it  is  said  that  the  bread  and  the  wine,  at 
the  time  of  the  invocation  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  "are 
changed,  or  transubstantiated,  into  the  very  body  of 
Christ,  and  into  the  very  blood  of  Christ."2  In  the  dec- 
laration of  faith  made  by  Russian  bishops  at  their  con- 
secration like  terms  are  used.  The  language  of  Platon 
and  of  the  catechism  published  at  Athens  in  1857  is  less 
specific,  asserting  only  the  reception  of  the  real  body  and 
blood  under  the  forms  of  bread  and  wine.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  seventeenth-century  creeds  by  Mogilas  and 
Dositheus  not  only  assert  transubstantiation  (jteTovoiuois), 
but  give  place  to  the  Roman  distinctions  between  sub- 
stance and  accidents.  In  this  attempt,  however,  to  define 
the  eucharistic  mystery  more  closely  they  seem  not  to 
have  furnished  an  effective  precedent  for  the  theologians 
of  the  Greek  communions  in  recent  times.  Certainly 
those  of  Russia  have  preferred  to  remain  by  general 
terms  and  to  avoid  all  attempts  at  specific  dogmatic  con- 
struction. Indeed,  there  is  a  considerable  party  in  the 
Russian  Church  which  is  disposed  to  deny  that  the  word 
by  which  their  standards  express  the  change  in  the  ele- 
ments is  properly  rendered  by  the  Latin  transubstantiatio. 

i  Summary  of  Christian  Divinity,  p.  142.  2  Quest.  339. 


SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  309 

This  was  the  contention  of  Philaret.1  "There  are  many," 
says  Headlam,  "who  probably  would  be  glad  to  get  rid 
of  the  word  (Greek,  nerovoiuois,  Russian,  pressouchchest- 
vlenic).  There  is  another  party  whose  aim  would  be  to 
emphasize  the  resemblance  to  Rome.  But  here,  on  the 
presumption  of  the  Eastern  Church,  there  is  a  previous 
question.  The  word  was  not  used  in  this  connection  in 
Eastern  theology  until  the  twelfth  century.  It  was  in- 
troduced from  a  Roman  source."2  Practically,  no  doubt, 
the  thinking  of  the  Greek  communions  is  strongly  per- 
vaded with  the  essential  conception  which  underlies  the 
term  "transubstantiation,"  and  it  is  so  associated  with 
their  ritual  transactions  as  to  be  almost  incapable  of  dis- 
lodgment.  But  no  expression  of  that  conception  has  place 
in  those  standards  to  which  they  have  agreed  to  impute 
strict  infallibility.  Theoretically,  then,  they  are  not  so\ 
absolutely  attached  to  transubstantiation  as  is  the  Latin/ 
communion. 

Relative  to  the  sacrament  of  penance  or  penitence  the\ 
Greek  Church  adheres  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  a  neces-  I 
sary   and   efficacious   remedy   for  sins   committed   after  / 
baptism.    To  this  extent  it  agrees  with  the  Roman  inter- 
pretation.    There  are  several  points,  however,  practical 
and  theoretical,  in  which  the  sacrament  as  administered 
and  understood  in  the  East  differs  from  the  Roman  rite. 
In  the  first  place,  in  the  former  domain  there  is  very 
little   disposition   to    distinguish   between   the   different 
grades  of  repentance  which  may  serve  as  a  sufficient  in- 
ward amend  on  the  part  of  the  penitent.    To  the  question, 
"What  is  required  of  the  penitent?"  the  catechism  of 

1  Wilbois,  L'Avenir  de  1'Eglise  Russe,  pp.  155,  156. 

2  Essay  on  Relations  with  the  Eastern  Churches,  in  Church  Problems, 
P-  235- 


310  THE    GREEK    TYPE 

Philaret  answers  simply :  "Contrition  for  his  sins,  with  a 
full  purpose  of  amendment  of  life,  faith  in  Jesus  Christ, 
and  hope  in  his  mercy."1  In  the  second  place,  Greek 
custom  makes  a  less  onerous  demand  than  Roman  as 
respects  confession  to  the  priest.  Among  the  Raskolniki 
of  the  priestly  branch  a  fairly  detailed  confession  may  be 
required.  But  in  the  Orthodox  Church  of  Russia  the 
demand  for  close  specification  is  commonly  omitted. 
/"Between  Oriental  and  Latin  confession,"  says  Leroy- 
Beaulieu,  "practice  appears  to  have  dug  a  chasm  which 
time  may  either  bridge  or  widen.  The  former  is  briefer 
V  or  more  summary,  less  explicit,  less  searching;  it  is  also 
less  frequent,  and  both  its  influence  on  the  worshiper  and 
the  authority  it  confers  on  the  clergy  are  thus  materially 
lessened.  It  is  generally  limited  to  serious  delinquencies, 
and  otherwise  is  content  with  general  declarations,  with- 
out specifying  any  particular  sins ;  it  does  not  delve  into 
the  secrets  of  individual  conscience,  into  the  intimacies  of 
private  life.  The  Russian  Church  does  not  place  in  the 
hands  of  her  followers  any  of  those  manuals  of  minute 
self-examination  which,  at  one  time,  were  in  such  general 
use  in  Catholic  countries;  nor  does  she  give  her  priests 
any  of  those  manuals  of  moral  theology  which  carry  the 
anatomy  of  vice  to  the  length  of  a  repulsive  vivisection.  In 
/^  word,  Orthodox  confession  is  simpler  and  discreeter, 
f  more  symbolical  and  more  attached  to  form  than  Roman 
V  confession."2  Again,  the  Greek  Church  in  part  adheres 
^to  the  precatory  form  of  absolution  which  in  the  early 
centuries  was  common  to  both  East  and  West.  That  the 
judicial  or  indicative  form  should  have  gained  currency 
in  the  Russian  division  may  be  imputed  to  Latin  influ- 

1  Quest.  353.  2  The  Empire  of  the  Tsar  and  the  Russians,  III.  143 


COMPARATIVE    ESTIMATE  311 

ence.1  Once  more  the  Eastern  theory  of  the  satisfaction 
required  of  the  penitent  differs  materially  from  the  West- 
ern. The  former  makes  the  satisfaction  simply  a  dis- 
cipline of  piety.2  The  latter  construes  it  as  a  debt  due  to 
divine  justice,  and  thus  involves,  in  connection  with  the 
scheme  of  indulgences,  the  obnoxious  conclusion  that 
human  discretion  is  enthroned  over  the  acknowledged 
demands  of  divine  justice.3 


IV. — A  COMPARATIVE  ESTIMATE  OF  GREEK 
SACERDOTALISM 

In  the  light  of  the  facts  which  have  been  stated  it  is 
quite  evident  that  Greek  sacerdotalism  compares  with  the 
Roman  very  much  as  an  intermediate  stage  in  a  progres- 
sive development  compares  with  an  extreme  or  ultimate 
stage.  In  its  conception  of  polity  the  Greek  ChurcnV 
repudiates  the  monarchic  and  absolutist  ideal  which  was 
built  up  within  the  limits  of  Latin  Christendom,  and 
goes  back  to  the  aristocratic  constitution  which  divided 
up  Christian  territory  between  several  patriarchs,  and 
set  above  them  the  ecumenical  council  as  the  one  author- 
ity competent  to  speak  with  an  infallible  voice  and  toy 

1  Neale,  History  of  the  Holy  Eastern  Church,  Part  I,  p.  loro. 

2  Leroy-Beaulieu,   III.    134,    135;  Wilbois,   L'Avenir  de  1'Eglise  Russe, 
pp.  147,  148. 

3  The  Roman  position  is  given  a  faithful  expression  in  the  following 
propositions:  "With  the  guilt  and  eternal  punishment  not  always  is  the 
entire  temporal  punishment  remitted  which  is  to  be  paid  to  divine  justice. 
...  A  man  in  a  state  of  grace  is  able  to  satisfy  God  for  the  debt  of  temporal 
punishment  by  works  of  penance  in  this  life.  .  .  .  According  to  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  word,  which  usage  has  determined,  an  indulgence  is  called  a 
relaxation  of  the  temporal  penalty,  still  due  to  God  after  the  remission  of 
guilt,  effected  through  an  application  of  the  treasure  of  the  satisfactions 
of  Christ  and  the  saints  outside  of  the  sacrament,  by  him  who  has  legitimate 
authority  for  this  purpose"  (Sasse,   Inst.  Theol.  de  Sacramentis  Ecclesize, 
II.  184,  189,  330). 


3i2  THE    GREEK    TYPE 

/^give  direction  to  the  entire  body  of  Christian  believers.1 
^  Inasmuch  as  it  recognizes  the  ecumenical  character  of  no 
assembly  since  the  Second  Council  of  Nicaea  (A.  D.  787), 
the  compass  of  the  infallible  decisions  to  which  it  com- 
mands subjection  is  much  more  limited  than  that  of  the 
imperative  tenets  of  the  Roman  Church,  and  besides 
stands  a  very  remote  chance  of  enlargement.  Only  by  a 
radical  revision  of  its  standpoint  could  it  offer  a  parallel 
to  the  innovations  by  which,  in  the  second  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  the  dogmas  of  the  immaculate  con- 
ception of  the  Virgin  and  the  unrestricted  absolutism  of 
the  pope  have  been  thrust  into  the  obligatory  creed  of  all 
who  look  to  Rome  as  their  ecclesiastical  capital.  In  its 
sacramental  theory  also  the  Greek  Church  arrests  itself 
at  an  earlier  point  than  does  the  Latin.  The  theory  to 
which  it  is  committed  is  the  vague  mystical  theory  advo- 
cated by  the  later  fathers,  and  the  bond  by  which  it  is 
held  to  this  theory  is  the  authority  of  a  long-standing 
consensus  rather  than  the  explicit  terms  of  confessedly 
infallible  decrees.  It  is  without  equivalent  for  numerous 
specifications  which,  in  the  Roman  Church,  have  been 
carried  over  from  scholastic  theology  into  conciliar  de- 
cisions. Judged  by  its  authoritative  formulas  its  sacra- 
mentalism  falls  short  of  the  Roman  by  several  degrees. 
The  saying  of  this  much,  however,  still  leaves  ample  room 
for  criticism.  The  Greek  type,  whatever  favorable  points 
it  may  exhibit  as  compared  with  the  Roman,  outruns  by 
far  the  New  Testament  standpoint  in  its  exaggerated 
sacramentalism  and  theories  of  priestly  mediation. 

1  The  bearing  of  the  historic  standpoint  of  the  Greek  Church  on  the  high 
pretensions  of  Rome  has  been  noticed  in  another  connection.  We  add 
here  this  judgment  of  Headlam:  "The  argument  against  the  claims  of 
Rome,  drawn  from  the  history,  the  position,  and  the  existence  of  the  Eastern 
Church,  seems  decisive"  (Church  Problems,  p.  247). 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  ANGLO-CATHOLIC   MOVEMENT 

I. — ANTECEDENTS  AND  GENERAL  COURSE  OF  THE 

MOVEMENT 

<• 

THE  terms  used  in  the  heading  of  the  chapter  may  be 
regarded  as  the  most  suitable  designation  of  the  very  pro- 
nounced High-Church  development  which,  from  various 
points  of  view,  has  been  termed  "Tractarianism,"  the 
'Oxford  movement,"  and  "Ritualism." 

As  respects  the  antecedents  of  the  Anglo-Catholic 
movement,  it  is  a  notable  fact  that  a  congenial  basis  for 
the  ultra  High-Churchism  by  which  it  was  distinguished 
was  supplied  only  in  a  very  restricted  measure  by  the  his- 
tory of  the  Church  of  England  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
The  Edwardean  and  Elizabethan  divines,  the  framers  of 
the  Prayer  Book  and  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  represented 
ways  of  thinking  wide  apart  from  the  postulates  of  the 
Anglo-Catholic  party  of  the  nineteenth  century.  In  the 
compilation  of  the  Prayer  Book,  it  is  true,  enough  phrases 
were  left  over  from  the  pre-Reformation  liturgy  to  afford 
somewhat  of  a  basis  for  those  desiring  to  conserve  a  con- 
siderable part  of  ancient  and  mediaeval  sacramentalism. 
But  the  interpretation  of  these  phrases  was  modified  by 
the  general  standpoint  of  the  sixteenth  century  theolo- 
gians. They  made  much  less  of  sacramental  efficacy  than 
is  made  by  recent  Anglo-Catholics,  and  stood  in  distinct 
contrast  with  the  latter  upon  the  relation  of  apostolical 
succession  and  episcopacy  to  valid  church  organization. 

313 


314  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

Cranmer  and  his  associates  had  no  thought  of  insisting 
upon  the  divine  right  of  episcopacy,  and  showed  by  their 
demeanor  toward  the  Protestants  on  the  Continent  that 
they  recognized  them  as  belonging  to  the  same  house- 
hold of  faith  with  themselves.1  It  was  also  remote  from 
the  thought  of  the  Elizabethan  divines  to  unchurch 
Protestant  communions  for  simple  lack  of  an  episcopacy 
reputed  to  possess  apostolic  connections.  Jewel,  bishop 
of  Salisbury,  besides  speaking  about  the  eucharist  and 
about  priestly  absolution  in  a  way  decidedly  afflictive  to 
the  Anglo-Catholic  mind,  distinctly  repudiated  the  no- 
tion that  episcopal  succession  stands  among  the  fore- 
most marks  of  a  true  Church.  "Lawful  succession,"  he 
wrote,  "standeth  not  only  in  possession  of  place,  but  also, 
and  much  rather,  in  doctrine  and  diligence.  .  .  .  God's 
grace  is  promised  unto  a  good  mind,  and  to  anyone  that 
feareth  him ;  not  unto  sees  and  successions."2  The  highly 
appreciative  relation  in  which  Parker,  the  first  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  under  Elizabeth,  stood  to  Jewel  is 
a  sufficient  guarantee  that  he  was  tolerant  of  the  position 
of  this  spirited  defender  of  the  English  Establishment 
against  Roman  criticism.  Possibly  his  sentiments  may 
have  been  less  in  contrast  with  the  Anglo-Catholic  model 
than  those  of  Jewel;  but  his  High-Church  biographer 
admits  that  he  sometimes  gave  expression  to  "ultra- 
Protestant  notions,"3  and  it  is  quite  certain  that  in  his 
conception  of  ecclesiastical  geography  the  lines  were  not 
drawn  so  closely  as  to  exclude  the  leading  Protestant 
communions.  His  successor,  Grindal,  kept  up  intimate 
relations  with  Bullinger  and  other  foreign  Protestants, 

1  Compare  Macaulay,  History  of  England,  I.  56,  57. 

*  Defense  of  Apology,  cited  in  Froude's  Remains,  vol.  I,  part  ii,  pref. 

»  Hook,  Lives  of  the  Archbishops  of  Canterbury,  IX.  293. 


ANTECEDENTS    AND    HISTORY  315 

and  was  confessedly  remote  in  his  administration  from 
the  High-Church  ideal.  Even  Archbishop  Whitgift,  with 
all  his  hardness  toward  Nonconformists,  took  a  broad 
view  of  the  conditions  of  ecclesiastical  validity.  "That 
any  one  kind  of  government,"  he  said,  "is  so  necessary 
that  without  it  the  Church  cannot  be  saved,  or  that  it 
may  not  be  altered  into  some  other  kind  thought  to  be 
more  expedient,  I  utterly  deny.  ...  I  find  no  one  cer- 
tain and  perfect  kind  of  government  prescribed  or  com- 
manded in  the  Scriptures  to  the  Church  of  Christ.  .  .  . 
Notwithstanding  government,  or  some  kind  of  govern- 
ment, may  be  a  part  of  the  Church,  touching  the  outward 
form  and  perfection  of  it,  yet  it  is  not  such  a  part  of  the 
essence  and  being,  but  that  it  may  be  the  Church  of  Christ 
without  this  or  that  kind  of  government."1  In  thus  ex- 
pressing himself  Whitgift  agreed  with  his  more  distin- 
guished contemporary,  Richard  Hooker.  In  his  classic 
defense  of  the  English  Church  against  Puritan  objections 
the  latter  plainly  taught  that  the  episcopal  is  rather  an 
eligible  than  a  necessary  form  of  ecclesiastical  organiza- 
tion, and  also  made  room  for  the  conclusion  that  even  if 
episcopacy  was  of  apostolic  institution  that  fact  would  not 
imply  beyond  all  question  its  indefeasible  and  exclusive 
right,  since  a  form  of  government  adapted  to  a  particular 
stage  of  history,  and  chosen  on  the  score  of  that  adapta- 
tion, is  not  thereby  certified  to  be  obligatory  at  every 
succeeding  stage.  The  following  are  some  of  his  state- 
ments: "He  which  affirmeth  speech  to  be  necessary 
amongst  all  men  throughout  the  world  doth  not  thereby 
import  that  all  must  necessarily  speak  one  kind  of  lan- 
guage. Even  so  the  necessity  of  polity  and  regiment  in 

1  Works,  Parker  Society  edit.,  I.  184,  185. 


3i6  THE  ANGLICAN   TYPE 

all  churches  may  be  held  without  holding  any  one  certain 
form  to  be  necessary  in  them  all.1  ...  If  we  did  seek 
to  maintain  that  which  most  advantageth  our  own  cause, 
the  very  best  way  for  us  were  to  hold  that  in  Scripture 
there  must  needs  be  found  some  particular  form  of  church 
polity  which  God  hath  instituted,  and  which  for  that  very 
cause  belongeth  to  all  Churches,  to  all  times.  But  with 
any  such  partial  eye  to  respect  ourselves,  and  by  cunning 
to  make  those  things  seem  the  truest  which  are  the  fittest 
to  serve  our  purpose,  is  a  thing  which  we  neither  like  nor 
mean  to  follow.2  .  .  .  Unto  the  complete  form  of 
church  polity  much  may  be  requisite  which  the  Scripture 
teacheth  not,  and  much  which  it  hath  taught  become  un- 
requisite,  sometime  because  we  need  not  use  it,  sometime 
also  because  we  cannot.3  .  .  .  There  may  be  sometimes 
very  just  and  sufficient  reason  to  allow  ordination  made 
without  a  bishop.  Men  may  be  extraordinarily,  yet  al- 
lowably, two  ways  admitted  unto  spiritual  function  in  the 
Church.  One  is,  when  God  himself  doth  of  himself  raise 
up  any,  whose  labor  he  useth  without  requiring  that  men 
should  authorize  them ;  but  then  he  doth  ratify  their  call- 
ing by  manifest  signs  and  tokens  from  heaven.  Another 
extraordinary  kind  of  vocation  is,  when  the  exigency  of 
necessity  doth  constrain  to  leave  the  usual  ways  of  the 
Church,  which  otherwise  we  would  willingly  keep :  where 
the  Church  must  needs  have  some  ordained,  and  neither 
hath,  nor  can  have  possibly,  a  bishop  to  ordain ;  in  case 
of  such  necessity  the  ordinary  institution  of  God  hath 
given  oftentimes,  and  may  give,  place."4 

The  first  departure  from  this  standpoint,  so  character- 

1  The  Laws  of  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  Book  iii,  chap.  ii. 

1  Ibid.,  Book  iii,  chap.  x.  *  Ibid.,  Book  iii,  chap.  xi. 

*  Ibid.,  Book  vii,  chap.  xiv. 


ANTECEDENTS    AND    HISTORY  317 

istic  of  the  fathers  of  the  English  Church,  seems  to  have 
been  made  by  Richard  Bancroft.  In  a  sermon  preached 
at  Saint  Paul's  Cross  in  1589  (or  February,  1588,  by  the 
old  reckoning)  he  thought  fit  to  assert,  over  against  the 
claim  made  by  some  of  the  Puritans  for  the  presbyterian 
polity,  the  divine  right  of  episcopacy.  It  is  in  evidence, 
however,  that  either  his  words  went  beyond  his  meaning, 
or  else  he  found  reason  further  on  not  to  abide  by  the 
conviction  expressed  on  the  given  occasion.  At  a  meet- 
ing of  the  convocation  of  the  province  of  Canterbury, 
over  which  Bancroft  presided  ( 1604),  a  canon  was  passed 
which  evidently  implied  a  recognition  of  the  Scottish 
Church — then  without  any  regular  episcopacy — as  a  part 
of  "Christ's  holy  Catholic  Church."1  Furthermore,  in 
1610,  when  the  consecration  of  bishops-elect  for  Scotland 
was  pending,  he  gave  his  voice  in  favor  of  the  validity 
of  ordinations  by  presbyters.  As  one  of  the  bishops-elect 
has  reported,  "a  question  was  moved  by  Dr.  Andrewes, 
bishop  of  Ely,  touching  the  consecration  of  the  Scottish 
bishops,  who,  as  he  said,  'must  first  be  ordained  presby- 
ters, as  having  received  no  ordination  from  a  bishop.' 
The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Dr.  Bancroft,  who  was 
by,  maintained  'that  thereof  there  was  no  necessity,  see- 
ing where  bishops  could  not  be  had,  the  ordination  given 
by  the  presbyters  must  be  esteemed  lawful;  otherwise  it 
might  be  doubted  if  there  were  any  lawful  vocation  in 
most  of  the  Reformed  Churches.'  "2  Bancroft,  it  is  true, 
according  to  another  report,  brought  forward  a  second 
reason  for  not  insisting  upon  prefacing  the  ordination 
to  the  office  of  bishop,  in  case  of  the  Scottish  candidates, 


1  Grub,  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Scotland,  II.  281,  282. 

*  Spottiswoode,  History  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  III.  209. 


3i8  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

by  consecration  to  the  office  of  presbyter,  namely,  certain 
historical  precedents  which  might  be  regarded  as  sanction- 
ing the  conclusion  that  the  episcopal  character  could  be 
conveyed  at  a  single  consecration,  irrespective  of  any  ante- 
cedent orders.1  But  in  thus  arguing  the  archbishop  did 
not  withdraw  his  contention  for  the  validity  of  presby- 
terian  orders;  he  simply  adduced  an  additional  ground 
for  quieting  the  scruples  of  the  objecting  party.  Several 
years  after  this  incident,  recognition  was  given  to  the 
standing  of  non-episcopal  churches  by  the  action  of  the 
English  king,  James  I,  in  designating  bishops  and  theolo- 
gians to  sit  in  the  Synod  of  Dort  (1618-19),  and  by  the 
consent  of  the  designated  persons  to  take  their  place  in 
the  Synod. 

/The  evidence  shows  conclusively  that  the  standpoint 
of  the  English  Church  for  more  than  half  a  century  after 
the  outlining  of  Articles  and  Prayer  Book  was  remote 
from  the  distinctive  platform  of  the  Anglo-Catholic  party 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  This  truth,  too,  was  recog- 
nized by  that  party  very  early  in  its  history.  A  prominent 
representative,  writing  in  1839  relative  to  R.  H.  Froude, 
who  died  three  years  before,  remarked :  "He  entered  on 
the  study  of  the  Reformers'  theology  with  the  general 
and  natural  impression  that  he  should  find,  on  the 
whole,  a  treasure  of  sound  Anglican  doctrine,  and  a  tone 
of  thought  in  unison  with  the  ancient  Church.  He  found 
himself  greatly  disappointed,  and  the  process  and  result 
of  that  disappointment  are  distinctly  enough  exhibited 
in  his  correspondence."2 

Debarred  from  appeal  to  the  fathers  and  founders  of 


1  Collier,  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Great  Britain,  VII.  362,  363. 
3  Remains  of  the  late  R.  H.  Froude,  vol.  I,  part  ii,  pref.,  p.  xxi. 


ANTECEDENTS    AND    HISTORY  319 

the  English  Church,  the  Anglo-Catholic  school  was 
obliged  to  pass  on  to  later  generations  in  the  search  for 
congenial  forerunners.  It  was  discovered  that  Laud  and 
others  of  the  Caroline  divines  had  made  a  very  fair  show- 
ing as  representatives  of  Anglo-Catholic  principles.  At 
the  same  time  the  conviction  was  reached  that  the  truest 
representatives  of  these  principles  among  all  the  High- 
Churchmen  of  the  past  were  the  Non jurors,  the  party 
which  refused  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  William 
and  Mary,  after  the  expulsion  of  the  Stuarts,  and  kept 
up  a  little  abortive  schism  through  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. As  early  as  1834  Thomas  Arnold  wrote  to  Pusey: 
"The  system  at  Oxford  seems  to  be  leading  to  a  revival 
of  the  Nonjurors,  a  party  far  too  mischievous  and  too 
foolish  ever  to  be  revived  with  success."1  That  the  first 
part  of  this  judgment  had  a  basis  of  fact  appears  from 
contemporary  acknowledgments  of  a  representative  of 
"the  system  at  Oxford."  In  1833  R.  H.  Froude  ex- 
pressed the  opinion  that  a  standing  ground  could  be  found 
only  by  reverting  to  Charles  I  and  the  Nonjurors,  and  in 
the  following  year  he  wrote :  "I  begin  to  think  that  the 
Nonjurors  were  the  last  English  divines,  and  that  those 
since  are  twaddlers."2  A  later  writer  expressed  the  con- 
viction that  between  the  rise  of  the  Nonjurors  and  the 
initiation  of  the  Oxford  movement  the  Establishment 
was  characterized  by  a  sad  dearth.  "The  whole  of  the 
eighteenth  century,"  he  declared,  "was  an  age  of  shams 
and  humbugs."3  More  recently  tribute  has  been  paid  to 
the  exemplary  ecclesiasticism  of  the  adherents  of  the  lost 
cause  of  the  Stuarts  in  these  words:  "The  Church  of 


1  Liddon,  Life  of  Pusey,  I.  282.      *  Remains,  vol.  I,  part  i,  pp.  307,  355. 
3  R.  F.  Littledale  in  Lectures  in  Defense  of  Church  Principles,  1871,  p.  79. 


320  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

England  has  not  to  this  day  recovered  from  the  loss  of 
the  Non jurors,  and  from  the  discredit  which  causes 
almost  entirely  political  threw  upon  the  school  which  rep- 
resented her  true  spirit  and  principles."1 

Historical  criticism  finds  no  occasion  to  deny  the  right 
of  Anglo-Catholics  to  emphasize  in  particular  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Nonjurors  as  an  antecedent  to  their  own  sys- 
tem. The  Laudian  scheme,  it  is  true,  was  suited  to  claim 
appreciation  as  making  large  account  of  apostolic  succes- 
sion, giving  acknowledgment  to  the  Roman  Catholic  com- 
munion as  a  true,  though  not  in  all  respects  orthodox, 
Church,  and  advocating  in  connection  with  the  eucharist 
the  doctrine  of  the  real  presence.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
Laud  conceded,  at  least  practically,  a  wide  province  to 
the  Erastian  principle  of  state  control.  Moreover,  his 
stress  upon  sacramental  efficacy  and  Catholic  ceremonies 
was  not  carried  to  the  highest  pitch.  On  these  points  the 
Nonjurors  seemed  to  the  initiators  of  the  Anglo-Catholic 
movement  to  have  come  nearer  to  the  ideal.  The  situa- 
tion of  the  latter  led  them  to  regard  with  very  little  com- 
placency the  control  claimed  and  asserted  by  the  State  in 
ecclesiastical  matters.  Accordingly,  the  anti-Erastian 
sentiments  contained  in  the  writings  of  the  Nonjurors 
were  very  welcome  to  them.  They  found  here,  too,  a 
readiness  to  disparage  the  Reformation  and  to  revert  with 
fondness  to  pre-Reformation  ideas  and  practices — a  trait 
quite  in  conformity  with  a  rapidly  developed  tendency 
among  themselves.  Laud,  who  had  not  fully  learned  to 
forswear  the  name  of  "Protestant"  as  a  thing  abhorred, 
was  less  able  to  command  their  appreciation.  Accord- 
ingly, it  came  about  that  the  school  which  was  very  much 

1  Whitham,  Holy  Orders,  1903,  p.  188. 


ANTECEDENTS    AND    HISTORY  321 

inclined  to  berate  the  schism  of  the  Dissenters  as  an  un- 
pardonable offense  affectionately  regarded  the  Nonj tir- 
ing schismatics  of  the  eighteenth  century  as  supplying  the 
most  genuine  antecedents  of  their  own  ecclesiastical  and 
theological  scheme. 

Described  as  to  its  more  immediate  antecedents,  trm 
Anglo-Catholic  movement  may  be  characterized  as  in  a] 
double  sense  a  reaction.    On  the  one  hand,  it  was  the  off-1, 
spring  of  a  rebound  against  the  political  liberalism  which  \ 
came  to  a  signal  triumph  in  the  third  and  fourth  decades    j 
of  the  nineteenth  century.     In  1828  an  open  door  into  / 
Parliament  was  set  before  the  Dissenters  by  the  abolition   \ 
of  the  Corporation  and  Test  Acts.    The  like  privilege  was   I 
awarded  to  Roman  Catholics  in  1829.    To  men  of  Tory  / 
and    High-Church    sentiments    these    measures    seemed 
prophetic  of  humiliation  and  disaster  to  the  Anglican 
Establishment.    How  could  the  Church,  they  argued,  be 
safe  when  the  national  legislature,  which  had  so  large  a 
measure  of  control  over  its  interests,  was  thrown  open 
to  those  who  were  its  natural  enemies?     The  jealousy 
aroused  was  further  stimulated  by  various  points  in  the 
scheme  of  reform  urged  forward  by  the  party  in  power, 
and  finally  was  kindled  to  a  flame  in  the  early  summer  of 
1833  by  the  Irish  Temporalities  Bill,  whereby  the  govern- 
ment proposed,  in  order  to  meet  the  strained  financial 
condition  of  the  Establishment  in  Ireland,  to  suppress  a 
large  number  of  bishoprics  in  that  country. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Anglo-Catholic  movement  was\ 
initiated  by  way  of  reaction  against  a  doctrinal  liberalism,  j 
against  what  were  esteemed  lax  views  respecting  polity,  j 
creed,  Scripture,  and  ecclesiastical  authority.    Men  dom- 
inated by  a  churchly  consciousness,  who  had  been  wont 


322  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

to  think  of  a  full  round  of  traditional  teachings  as 
properly  secure  against  all  challenge,  were  not  a  little 
disquieted  by  such  tokens  of  independent  thinking  as  were 
furnished  by  writers  and  teachers  like  Whately,  Coleridge, 
Hampden,  and  Thomas  Arnold.  Rumors  of  destructive 
work  in  the  field  of  German  scholarship  served  naturally 
to  quicken  their  apprehensions,  and  the  more  so  because 
of  their  exceedingly  meager  acquaintance  with  German 
philosophy,  theology,  and  criticism,  that  which  is  seen 
through  mist  and  dimness  being  apt  to  take  on  a  specially 
portentous  aspect.  Of  scholarship  in  the  broader  sense 
the  original  Tractarians  could  make  no  boast.  Pusey, 
it  may  be  admitted,  had  a  fair  equipment;  but  he  was 
an  exception,  and,  besides,  the  Tractarian  movement  had 
been  well  started  before  he  gave  it  his  countenance.  Re- 
ferring to  the  initial  period,  Professor  Jowett  has  re- 
marked :  "None  of  the  leaders  were,  I  think,  at  that  time 
acquainted  with  German  except  Dr.  Pusey,  who  employed 
his  knowledge  for  the  most  part  in  the  refutation  of  the 
old  German  rationalism.  To  say  the  truth,  the  learning 
of  that  day  was  of  a  rather  attenuated  sort.  The  energy 
and  ability  of  that  generation  were  out  of  all  proportion 
to  their  attainments.  Hardly  one  had  read  the  works 
of  Kant  and  Hegel,  which  have  since  exercised  a  great 
influence  upon  Oxford  study.  Very  little  was  known  of 
Plato.  The  philosophy  of  that  day  was  contained  in 
Aristotle's  Ethics  and  Rhetoric  and  Butler's  Analogy  and 
Sermons."1  Evidently  conservative  Churchmen,  who 
possessed  such  limited  means  of  understanding  the  new 
intellectual  era  by  which  they  were  confronted,  were  very 


1  Cited  in  Wilfrid  Ward's  book  on  W.  G.  Ward  and  the  Oxford  Move- 
ment,  p.  432. 


ANTECEDENTS    AND    HISTORY  323 

much  exposed  to  a  sense  of  panic,  and  were  liable  to 
resort,  in  their  attempt  to  gain  security,  to  superficial  and 
ill-chosen  expedients. 

Under  pressure  of  the  disquiet  and  alarm  arising  from 
these  sources  a  company  of  men  in  the  midsummer  of 
1833  began  to  devise  measures  for  meeting  the  crisis 
which  they  believed  had  overtaken  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. These  men  were  associated  with  Oxford  Univer- 
sity. One  of  them,  it  is  true,  Hugh  James  Rose,  was  a 
Cambridge  man ;  but,  though  the  first  meeting  for  form- 
ing a  plan  of  action  was  held  at  his  parsonage  at  Had- 
leigh,  he  can  hardly  be  rated  as  a  conspicuous  agent  in  the 
movement  which  was  set  on  foot.  His  death  occurred 
near  the  end  of  1838.  In  the  list  of  Oxford  men  were 
John  Keble,  R.  H.  Froude,  J.  H.  Newman,  William  Pal- 
mer of  Worcester  College,  A.  Percival,  Isaac  Williams, 
and  Charles  Marriott.  Among  these  the  first  three  were 
the  most  radical  in  temper,  and  may  be  rated  in  a  special 
sense  as  the  founders  of  Tractarianism.  Of  the  three 
Newman,  though  greatly  stimulated  at  the  start  by  the 
other  two,  fulfilled  most  largely  for  about  eight  years  the 
role  of  leadership.  Froude's  course  was  very  brief,  being 
cut  short  by  death  in  1836.  In  the  first  consultations 
of  this  group  of  Oxfordists  the  plan  of  an  association 
was  drawn  up  for  the  purpose  of  uniting  the  friends  of 
the  Church  of  England  in  its  defense.  This  expedient, 
however,  soon  fell  into  the  shade,  and  interest  became  cen- 
tered in  the  Tracts  for  the  Times,  which  were  started  by 
the  initiative  of  the  more  radical  spirits  and  became  so 
prominent  as  to  supply  one  of  the  names  by  which  the 
Anglo-Catholic  movement  is  known.  The  Tracts,  espe- 
cially the  earlier  ones,  were  written  in  vigorous,  almost 


324  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

violent,  language,  with  the  purpose  of  arousing  clergy 
and  laity  and  inflaming  them  with  a  High-Church  zeal. 
They  continued  to  be  issued  till  1841,  when  the  series 
came  to  a  close  on  account  of  the  episcopal  disapprobation 
of  Tract  90,  which  was  written  by  Newman,  and  was 
charged  with  vaporing  away  the  natural  sense  of  the 
Thirty-nine  Articles  in  the  interest  of  an  Anglo-Catholic 
interpretation. 

The  tone  and  contents  of  the  Tracts  will  find  illustra- 
tion under  succeeding  topics.  It  will  suffice  to  notice 
here  that  in  respect  of  the  doctrines  of  a  high  and  ex- 
clusive ecclesiasticism  and  an  ultra  sacramentalism  they 
contained  a  very  good  share  of  the  matured  Anglo-Catho- 
lic scheme.  On  the  other  hand,  as  respects  a  predilection 
for  ritual  modeled  after  Roman  practice,  and  in  general 
as  respects  an  attitude  of  friendliness  and  obeisance  to- 
ward Rome,  they  fell  short  of  what  came  to  manifestation 
at  a  later  period. 

During  the  era  of  the  Tracts  various  other  writings 
were  issued  in  advocacy  of  Anglo-Catholic  principles. 
The  most  noted  of  these  was  Newman's  Prophetical 
Office  of  the  Church  viewed  relatively  to  Romanism  and 
Popular  Protestantism,  issued  in  1837,  and  republished 
under  the  title  of  Via  Media.  In  1838  the  first  part  of 
Froude's  Remains,  prepared  under  the  editorship  of  New- 
man and  Keble,  was  sent  forth,  and  gave  the  public  rather 
startling  information  on  the  anti-Reformation  animus 
with  which  at  least  one  of  the  founders  of  Tractarianism 
was  imbued.  The  same  year  witnessed  also  the  publica- 
tion of  Palmer's  Treatise  on  the  Church  of  Christ,  a  work 
of  a  stanchly  High-Church  tenor,  but  corresponding,  on 
the  whole,  to  the  reputed  position  of  the  author  as  a  rep- 


ANTECEDENTS    AND    HISTORY  325 

resentative  of  the  more  moderate  wing  of  the  original 
Tractarians. 

Having  set  up  an  Anglo-Catholic  ideal  as  the  true 
pattern  for  the  Established  Church,  the  Tractarian 
party  was  naturally  galled  by  acts  of  administration 
which  carried  an  appearance  of  despite  to  that  ideal. 
Two  or  three  of  these  occurred  during  the  period  of 
Newman's  leadership.  In  the  first  place,  much  disgust 
and  bitterness  were  caused  (1835-36)  by  the  appointment 
of  Hampden  to  the  chair  of  Regius  Professor  of  Divinity 
at  Oxford.  The  appointment  was  looked  upon  as  little 
better  than  the  awarding  of  a  prize  for  heterodoxy. 
In  1832  Hampden  had  given  the  Bampton  Lectures, 
which,  however,  were  not  published  until  1834.  The 
theme  of  the  lectures  was  the  Scholastic  Philosophy  Con- 
sidered in  its  Relation  to  Christian  Theology.  In  the  dis- 
cussion of  this  subject  the  lecturer  found  occasion  to 
contrast  the  great  facts  of  revelation,  which  have  im- 
perishable worth  and  unquestionable  validity,  with  the 
speculative  deductions  or  dogmatic  construction  derived 
from  these  facts.  He  also  took  the  liberty  to  speak  in 
rather  disparaging  terms  of  sacramental  theurgy.  These 
were  great  faults  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  held  a  wor- 
shipful attitude  toward  Catholic  traditions.  Hampden 
seemed  to  them  an  irreverent  iconoclast,  a  contemner  of 
the  great  creeds  which  are  the  bulwark  of  the  Christian 
faith,  the  representative  of  a  rationalizing  method  which 
would  expose  the  most  sacred  dogmas  to  reckless  assault. 
This  estimate,  we  are  compelled  to  conclude,  was  not 
earned  by  the  Bampton  lecturer.  In  making  the  distinc- 
tion which  he  did  between  the  facts  of  revelation  and 
dogmatic  deductions  therefrom  Hampden  was  rather  act- 


326  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

ing  the  part  of  the  discreet  apologist  than  of  the  adven- 
turous rationalist.  Moreover,  it  was  manifestly  not  his 
purpose  to  deny  the  serviceableness  of  dogmatic  deduc- 
tions, but  only  to  object  to  their  being  foisted  into  the 
place  of  primary  importance.  He  conceded  a  useful  office 
to  creeds.  "It  appears  to  me,"  he  said,  "that  the  occasion 
for  articles  will  probably  never  cease.  It  would  be  a  rash- 
ness of  pious  feeling  that  should  at  once  so  confide  in 
itself  as  to  throw  down  the  walls  and  embankments 
which  the  more  vigilant  fears  of  our  predecessors  have 
reared  up  around  the  city  of  God.  At  the  same  time  we 
must  not  suppose  that  the  same  immutability  belongs  to 
articles  of  religion,  which  we  ascribe  properly  to  the 
Scripture  facts  alone."1  A  more  eligible  position  could 
not  well  be  taken.  At  the  same  time  it  is  perfectly  intel- 
ligible that  the  Tractarians  should  have  entertained  to- 
ward Hampden  feelings  of  radical  distrust  and  hostility, 
and  should  have  counted  his  appointment  to  the  divinity 
professorship  a  distinct  grievance. 

A  second  source  of  disquietude  and,  in  some  minds,  of 
incipient  despair  of  the  Established  Church  was  the  affair 
of  the  Jerusalem  bishopric  as  consummated  in  1841. 
This  was  an  arrangement  between  England  and  Prussia, 
in  the  furtherance  of  which  Bunsen  took  an  active  part, 
for  the  joint  establishment  and  supervision  of  an  episcopal 
station  in  Palestine.  "The  projected  bishop  was  to  take 
charge  of  members  of  the  English  Church,  as  well  as 
German  Protestants  and  any  others  who  might  be  willing 
to  place  themselves  under  his  jurisdiction.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  was  to  cultivate  friendly  relations  with  the 
Orthodox  Church,  and  to  promote  conversions  among 

1  Second  edit.,  p.  381. 


ANTECEDENTS    AND    HISTORY  327 

the  Jews.  On  October  5,  1841,  an  act  of  Parliament  was 
passed  to  carry  this  proposal  into  effect ;  and  it  was  agreed 
that  the  British  and  Prussian  crowns  should  nominate 
alternately  to  the  bishopric;  that  Prussia  should  supply 
half  the  endowment,  and  English  subscribers  the  other 
half;  and  that  the  bishop  might  ordain  Germans  who 
would  subscribe  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  and  the  Confes- 
sion of  Augsburg."1  To  High-Churchmen,  and  especially 
to  the  Tractarians,  this  project  seemed  to  involve  the 
dragging  of  the  Church  of  England  into  an  unholy  alli- 
ance with  heretics  and  to  cancel  her  claim  to  be  a  branch 
of  the  Catholic  Church.  Newman  was  greatly  agitated 
over  the  matter,  though  he  confessed  at  a  later  date 
(1865),  "As  to  the  project  of  the  Jerusalem  bishopric, 
I  never  heard  of  any  good  or  harm  it  has  ever  done, 
except  what  it  has  done  for  me."2 

The  unsympathetic,  not  to  say  hostile,  attitude  of  the 
bishops  united  with  these  events  to  chill  the  confidence 
and  affection  of  a  considerable  number  of  the  more  ardent 
Tractarians  toward  the  Church  of  England,  and  to  nur- 
ture that  appreciation  for  the  Church  of  Rome  which  was 
a  logical  outcome  from  their  premises.  Newman,  accord- 
ing to  his  own  declaration,  was  on  his  "death-bed  as  re- 
gards his  membership  with  the  Church  of  England"  from 
the  end  of  i84i.3  Certain  obstacles  still  lay  across  the 
path  to  Rome,  but  by  the  ingenious  intellectual  expedients 
which  came  to  manifestation  in  his  Essay  on  the  Develop- 
ment of  Christian  Doctrine,  these  were  finally  disposed 
of,  and  in  October,  1845, tne  most  noted  of  the  Tractarian 
leaders  was  received  into  the  Roman  Church.  Within 


1  Liddon,  Life  of  Pusey,  II.  248. 

*  Apologia  pro  Vita  Sua,  1887,  p.  146.  « Ibid.,  p.  147. 


328  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

a  brief  interval  the  same  refuge  from  dogmatic  responsi- 
bilities was  gained  by  Ward,  Oakeley,  Capes,  St.  John, 
Coffin,  Dalgairns,  Faber,  Meyrick,  Christie,  Simpson, 
Northcote,  Morris,  Ryder,  and  Lewis.  Some  of  these 
men  had  been  virtually  advocating  the  cause  of  Rome 
against  that  of  the  Church  of  England  for  several  years 
before  they  had  the  grace  to  put  on  the  proper  badge. 

Further  events  of  a  kind  specially  obnoxious  to  Anglo- 
Catholic  feeling  facilitated  a  further  exodus  from  the 
Anglican  Egypt  into  the  Roman  Canaan.  In  1847  came 
Hampden's  nomination  to  the  episcopal  office.  While 
this  instance  of  an  exasperating  use  of  patronage  was  still 
freshly  remembered  by  Anglo-Catholics  the  public  began 
to  be  agitated  by  the  famous  Gorham  case.  This  case 
takes  its  name  from  George  C.  Gorham,  whose  right  to 
enter  upon  the  living  of  Brampford  Speke,  to  which  he 
had  been  appointed,  was  challenged  on  account  of  his 
denial  that  regeneration  is  necessarily  effected  in  baptism, 
and  that  baptism  is  in  any  case  unconditionally  efficacious 
to  work  regeneration.  To  those  who  held,  or  were  in 
close  affinity  with,  the  Tractarian  teaching,  Gorham's 
position  seemed  to  contravene  Catholic  doctrine.  Ac- 
cordingly, when  the  highest  court,  the  Judicial  Committee 
of  the  Privy  Council,  pronounced  in  favor  of  the  chal- 
lenged clergyman  (1850),  they  regarded  the  verdict  as 
equivalent  to  an  advertisement  that  Catholic  doctrine 
could  claim  no  proper  security  in  the  Church  of  England. 
And  so  the  Romeward  leanings  of  the  Anglo-Catholic 
party  came  again  to  signal  manifestation,  and  the  names 
of  Manning,  Henry  Wilberforce,  R.  I.  Wilberforce,  Hope 
Scott,  Maskell,  Dodsworth,  and  Badeley  were  numbered 
with  the  converts  to  the  Roman  faith.  This  was  the  last 


ANTECEDENTS    AND    HISTORY  329 

notable  exodus.  Thereafter  friendship  for  Rome  within 
the  ranks  of  Anglo-Catholics  took  mainly  the  line  of 
efforts  to  Romanize  the  English  Establishment. 

Among  those  of  the  Tractarians  who  remained  firm 
in  their  allegiance  to  the  Church  of  England  Pusey  com- 
manded, on  the  whole,  the  widest  influence.  To  the  con- 
cluding volumes  of  the  Tracts  he  was  the  most  important 
contributor.  Already  before  the  retirement  of  Newman 
he  had  begun  to  be  looked  to  as  a  leader,  and  from  that 
point  his  position  in  the  Anglo-Catholic  movement  was 
so  conspicuous  that  Puseyism  was  often  employed  as  an 
equivalent  term  for  Tractarianism.  Indeed,  it  was  about 
this  time  that  he  had  occasion,  in  replying  to  a  corre- 
spondent, to  define  "Puseyism."  The  definition  was  given 
in  the  following  terms :  "  ( i )  High  thoughts  of  the  two 
sacraments.  (2)  High  estimate  of  episcopacy  as  God's 
ordinance.  (3)  High  estimate  of  the  visible  Church  as 
the  body  wherein  we  are  made  and  continue  to  be  mem- 
bers of  Christ.  (4)  Regard  for  ordinances,  as  directing 
our  devotions  and  disciplining  us,  such  as  daily  public 
prayers,  fasts,  and  feasts.  (5)  Regard  for  the  visible 
part  of  devotion,  such  as  the  decoration  of  the  house  of 
God,  which  acts  insensibly  on  the  mind.  (6)  Reverence 
for  and  deference  to  the  ancient  Church,  of  which  our 
own  Church  is  looked  upon  as  the  representative  to  us, 
and  by  whose  views  and  doctrines  we  interpret  our  own 
Church  when  her  meaning  is  questioned  or  doubtful:  in 
a  word,  reference  to  the  ancient  Church,  instead  of  to  the 
Reformers,  as  the  ultimate  expounder  of  the  meaning  of 
our  Church."1  To  this  statement  it  should  be  added  that 
Pusey,  notwithstanding  his  opposition  to  some  parts  of 

1  Liddon,  Life  of  Pusey,  II.  140. 


330  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

the  Roman  system,  especially  to  the  extravagant  cult  of 
the  Virgin,  affiliated  conspicuously  with  important 
features  of  Roman  as  opposed  to  Reformation  dogmas, 
and  up  to  the  eve  of  the  Vatican  Council  was  busied  more 
or  less  with  the  project  of  the  union  of  the  Anglican 
and  Roman  communions,  at  least  in  the  sense  of  mutual 
recognition.  Even  for  such  a  feature  of  practical  Roman- 
ism as  the  use  of  eccentric  means  of  self-discipline  he 
cherished  a  warm  appreciation,  and  applied  to  himself 
an  ascetic  regime  supremely  adapted  to  turn  a  man  of  less 
substantial  character  into  a  warped  and  painful  martinet.1 
With  the  earlier  representatives  of  Tractarianism 
ritual  in  the  Roman  style  was  not  a  vital  issue. 
Not  one  of  the  leaders  was  a  zealot  for  its  intro- 
duction into  the  Anglican  services.  Pusey's  attitude 
toward  it  was  rather  that  of  tolerance  and  measured  ap- 
preciation than  of  enthusiastic  advocacy.  As  late  as 
1873  he  expressed  distrust  of  the  spirit  and  policy  of  the 
ultra  Ritualists.2  "He  greatly  doubted  the  wisdom  and 
disliked  the  abruptness  with  which  much  of  the  cere- 
monial had  been  introduced  into  the  parish  churches."3 
From  the  very  start,  however,  the  Anglo-Catholic  move- 
ment provided  a  logical  basis  for  an  efflorescence  of  ritual 
through  the  immense  stress  laid  upon  the  sanctity  and 
virtue  of  the  sacraments.  It  is  no  cause  for  surprise, 
therefore,  that  in  the  last  half  of  the  century  the  effort  to 
secure  a  free  course  for  a  Catholicized  ritual  was  a  promi- 
nent feature  of  the  movement.  Among  the  points  con- 
tended for  were  the  Eastward  position,  certain  vestments 
in  ancient  use,  lights,  the  mixed  chalice,  unleavened 


1  See  the  particulars  in  Liddon,  Life  of  Pusey,  III.  104,  103 
*  Ibid.,  IV.  271.  « Ibid.,  IV.  277. 


ANTECEDENTS    AND    HISTORY  331 

bread  in  the  sacrament,  and  incense.  The  attempt  on  the 
part  of  the  Ritualists  to  institute  their  favorite  ceremonies 
has  encountered  some  rebuffs  in  the  way  of  legal  deci- 
sions, but  on  the  whole  they  have  advanced  toward  a  wide 
liberty. 

In  consideration  of  the  large  percentage  of  the  clergy 
who  in  the  present  are  imbued  with  Anglo-Catholic  prin- 
ciples, the  victory  would  seem  to  be  with  the  party  which 
started  out  in  1833  to  push  those  principles  to  the  front. 
But  in  another  point  of  view  this  party  seems  to  have  met 
with  a  very  considerable  failure.  However  wide  a  sphere 
Anglo-Catholic  principles  may  occupy  in  the  clerical  body, 
they  have  their  place  there  by  tolerance,  and  not  by 
authority.  The  Establishment  is  not  committed  to  them, 
since  a  free  course  is  given  to  principles  of  an  opposite 
character.  There  has  been,  in  fact,  an  evolution  toward 
the  latitudinarian  or  Broad-Church  ideal  which  provides 
room  within  the  Establishment  for  the  full  list  of  ecclesi- 
astical species,  however  wide  apart  those  species  may  be 
in  their  characteristics.  Looking  at  the  matter  on  this 
side  one  can  recognize  an  element  of  truth  in  Wilfrid 
Ward's  statement :  "It  is  not  Pusey  and  Keble  who  have 
triumphed ;  it  is  rather  Stanley  and  Jowett."1 

The  communions  historically  associated  with  the 
Church  of  England  could  not  well  fail  to  be  affected  by 
the  Anglo-Catholic  movement.  That  Episcopalians  in 
Ireland  should  have  been  relatively  backward  in  respond- 
ing to  the  movement  is  accounted  for  by  the  special  con- 
ditions under  which  they  were  placed.  As  a  representa- 
tive wrote  in  1872,  the  close  neighborhood  of  a  prepon- 

1  W.  G.  Ward  and  the  Oxford  Movement,  pp.  379,  380. 


332  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

derant  Romanism  tended  to  keep  down  the  extremes  of 
feeling  and  opinion  which  coexisted  in  the  Establishment 
across  the  Channel.  "In  England,  where  Romanism  is 
comparatively  little  known,  men  of  high  intellect  and 
refined  taste  have  been  attracted  to  the  Roman  Church, 
or  rather  to  an  ideal  Church  of  their  own  imagination 
which  they  identified  with  it.  In  Ireland,  though  there 
have  been  a  few  such  cases,  the  majority  have  been  in- 
fluenced by  a  violent  repulsion  from  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church.  That  Church  displays  itself  in  Ireland  in  such 
a  guise  as  to  render  it  almost  impossible  for  any  one  in 
actual  contact  with  it  to  mistake  it  for  the  Church  which 
recluses  at  Oxford  imagined  in  their  dreams.  Of  course, 
there  are  in  Ireland  High-Churchmen  and  Low-Church- 
men; and  it  is  a  great  mistake  to  imagine  the  Irish 
Church  to  be  that  low-level  swamp  of  Puritanism  which 
some  in  England  imagine  it  to  be.  But  all  sections  of  the 
Church  are  united  in  a  steady  opposition  to  the  claims 
and  power  of  the  Church  of  Rome.  They  have  the  union 
of  men  who  feel  that  they  are  face  to  face  with  a  common 
danger,  and  an  enemy  who  is  ever  ready  to  profit  by  their 
divisions  and  mistakes.  Ritualism  (properly  so  called) 
has  no  sympathizing  party  in  Ireland."1 

In  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  the  United 
States  there  was  a  greater  receptivity  for  the  Oxford 
leaven.  At  the  time  of  its  organization,  in  1785-89,  this 
communion  undoubtedly  was  predominantly  Low- 
Church.  Bishop  Seabury,  of  Connecticut,  it  is  true,  rep- 
resented at  that  stage  a  High-Church  element;  but  much 
the  larger  party  was  in  cordial  agreement  with  Bishop 


1 J.  C.  Macdonnel,  in  the  Church  and  the  Age,  second  series,  edited  by 
Weir  and  Maclagan,  p.  352. 


ANTECEDENTS    AND    HISTORY  333 

White,  of  Pennsylvania,  whose  Low-Church  standpoint 
is  abundantly  attested.  How  remote  he  was  from  the 
Tractarian  habit  of  disparaging  the  Reformation  is  indi- 
cated by  the  following  statement  in  his  Memoirs  of  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church :  "It  will  be  a  most  impor- 
tant use  of  the  review  to  notice  the  undeviating  intention 
of  the  Church  to  make  no  such  alterations  as  shall  inter- 
fere with  the  maintaining  of  the  doctrines  of  the  gospel, 
as  acknowledged  at  the  Reformation.  That  point  of  time 
should  be  kept  in  mind,  in  order  to  protect  the  Church, 
not  only  against  threatened  innovations  from  without, 
but  also  against  others,  which  have  occasionally  showed 
their  heads  in  the  Church  of  England,  and  may  show 
their  heads  in  this  Church,  betraying  a  lurking  fondness 
for  errors  which  had  been  abandoned.''1  The  "lurking 
fondness"  for  Roman  peculiarities,  or  for  close  approx- 
imations thereto,  came  quite  speedily  to  manifestation. 
High-Church  sentiment,  which  had  made  considerable 
gains  among  the  younger  clergy  by  the  third  decade  of 
the  century,  received  an  impetus  from  the  writings  of  the 
Oxford  school,  and  the  result  soon  appeared  in  defections 
to  Rome,  the  most  noted  being  that  of  Bishop  Ives,  of 
North  Carolina,  near  the  end  of  1852.  It  is  estimated 
that  up  to  the  year  1885  about  fifty  presbyters  and 
deacons  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  had  entered 
the  Roman  communion.2  Shortly  after  the  close  of  the 
war  of  the  rebellion  the  subject  of  ritual  became  a  source 
of  serious  agitation.  Judged  by  the  canon  which  was 
passed  by  a  very  large  majority  in  1874,  the  authority  of 
the  Church  was  distinctly  asserted  against  the  practices 


1  Page  316,  edit,  of  1820. 

'  W.  S.  Perry,  History  of  the  American  Episcopal  Church,  II.  290. 


334  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

of  the  advanced  ritualists.  But  the  constitutionality  of 
the  canon  has  been  disputed,  and  the  practices  of  which 
it  disapproves  seem  not  to  have  been  discontinued  by  the 
minority  which  sets  a  high  value  upon  them.  Within  this 
party,  too,  some  very  pronounced  specimens  of  High- 
Church  literature  have  been  produced  in  recent  years. 
We  judge  that  no  representative  of  the  Anglo-Catholic 
movement  in  any  quarter  has  written  a  treatise  more 
thoroughly  steeped  in  sacerdotal  postulates,  or  more 
closely  affiliated  with  the  Roman  Catholic  system,  than 
is  the  Manual  of  Catholic  Faith  and  Practice,  by  A.  G. 
Mortimer. 

II. — THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  AUTHORITY  AS  RECOGNIZED  BY 
ANGLO-CATHOLICS 

From  the  beginning  of  their  movement  the  Anglo- 
Catholic  party  laid  immense  emphasis  upon  patristic 
authority.  It  was  a  maxim  with  them  that  the  patristic 
consensus  affords  an  obligatory  norm  of  faith,  not,  in- 
deed, as  setting  the  Bible  aside,  but  as  overruling  indi- 
vidual interpretation  and  showing  what  doctrines  can 
properly  be  elicited  from  the  sacred  oracles.  On  ques- 
tions of  dogma,  it  was  claimed,  the  verdict  of  Catholic 
antiquity  is  decisive,  and  on  other  questions  is  entitled 
to  profound  reverence.  How  strongly  this  maxim  was 
put  in  the  Tracts  for  the  Times  will  appear  in  the  follow- 
ing citations :  "There  is  evidently  no  security,  no  rest 
for  the  sole  of  one's  foot,  except  in  the  form  of  sound 
words,  the  one  definite  system  of  doctrine  sanctioned  by 
the  one  apostolic  and  primitive  Church."1  "We  cannot 
allow  ourselves  to  think  slightingly  of  apostolical  fathers, 

>  Tract  60. 


PRINCIPLE    OF    AUTHORITY  335 

without  thinking  so,  in  some  degree,  of  apostles ;  and  we 
cannot  think  slightingly  of  apostles  without  lowering  our 
veneration  for  our  Lord  himself."1  "When  the  fathers 
speak  of  doctrines  they  speak  of  them  as  being  universally 
held.  They  are  witnesses  to  the  fact  of  those  doctrines 
being  received,  not  here  or  there,  but  everywhere.  We 
receive  those  doctrines  which  they  thus  held,  not  merely 
because  they  held  them,  but  because  they  bear  witness 
that  all  Christians  everywhere  then  held  them."2  The 
fathers  doubtless  were  very  free  to  allegorize  the  Scrip- 
tures and  to  affirm  mystical  meanings  in  a  large  propor- 
tion of  texts.  But  this  in  no  wise  prejudices  their  author- 
ity as  interpreters.  It  is  rather  a  mark  of  heresy  to  con- 
duct exegesis  on  a  different  plan.  "As  Scripture  itself, 
both  in  substance  and  in  form,  is  surely  far  unlike  what 
mere  human  wisdom  would  have  anticipated,  so  it  is  more 
than  possible  that  the  true  method  of  interpreting  it  may 
conduct  us  on  a  very  different  line  from  any  which  would 
be  pointed  out  by  merely  human  criticism."3  "The  char- 
acteristic difference  between  the  interpretation  of  Catho- 
lic Christians  and  those  of  heretical  teachers  is,  that  the 
latter  lower  and  bring  down  the  senses  of  Scripture  as  if 
they  were  mere  human  words,  while  the  former  consider 
the  words  of  divine  truth  to  contain  greater  meanings 
than  we  can  fathom,  and  therefore  amplify  and  extend 
their  significance."4 

Equivalent  assertions  of  the  paramount  authority  of 
Catholic  antiquity  were  often  made  by  the  original  Trac- 
tarians.  Froude  argued  that  the  apostles  were  infallible 
judges  of  controversies,  and  that  consequently  any  por- 
tion of  their  decisions  or  interpretations  of  Scripture, 

»  Tract  80.  'Tract  83.  » Tract  89.  'Tract  87. 


336  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

even  though  delivered  orally,  if  only  credibly  attested  is 
of  binding  authority.  He  appended  this  statement:  "It 
will  be  found  that  such  a  portion  of  these  doctrinal  inter- 
pretations of  Scripture  was  actually  secured  and  recorded 
in  primitive  times,  and  has  been  transmitted  to  us,  by 
means  of  history,  as  is  sufficient  to  answer  the  purpose 
of  an  unerring  guide,  so  far  as  the  mysteries  of  religion 
are  concerned."1 

Newman  in  his  Anglican  period  laid  down  the  follow- 
ing rules  for  the  determination  of  disputed  questions: 
"Scripture,  antiquity,  and  Catholicity  cannot  really  con- 
tradict one  another.  When  the  sense  of  Scripture,  as 
interpreted  by  the  reason  of  the  individual,  is  contrary  to 
the  sense  given  to  it  by  Catholic  antiquity,  we  ought  to 
side  with  the  latter.  When  antiquity  runs  counter  to  the 
present  Church  in  important  matters,  we  must  follow  an- 
tiquity ;  when  in  unimportant  matters,  we  must  follow  the 
present  Church.  When  the  present  Church  speaks  con- 
trary to  our  private  notions,  and  antiquity  is  silent,  or  its 
decisions  unknown  to  us,  it  is  pious  to  sacrifice  our  own 
opinion  to  the  Church."2  As  to  the  period  covered  by  the 
antiquity  to  which  he  attached  so  high  an  authority,  New- 
man did  not  venture  to  be  precise.  "This  much  is  plain," 
he  said,  "that  the  termination  of  the  period  of  purity 
cannot  be  fixed  much  earlier  than  the  Council  of  Sardica, 
A.  D.  347,  nor  so  late  as  the  second  Nicene  or  seventh 
general  council,  which  was  held  A.  D.  787."3  Subse- 
quently, when  his  hold  on  Anglicanism  was  giving  way, 
Newman  wrote:  "The  supremacy  of  conscience  is  the 
essence  of  natural  religion;  the  supremacy  of  apostle,  or 


1  Remains,  vol.  I,  part  ii,  pp.  348,  349.  *  Via  Media,  I.  134,  135. 

*  Ibid.,  I.  207. 


PRINCIPLE    OF    AUTHORITY  337 

pope,  or  Church,  or  bishop,  is  the  essence  of  revealed."1 
By  this  time  an  uneasy  suspicion  had  crept  into  his  mind 
that  private  judgment  could  be  deployed  in  interpreting 
Catholic  antiquity,  and  that  consequently  Anglicanism 
had  no  consistent  means  of  banishing  private  judgment  in 
favor  of  a  general  and  unimpeachable  authority.2  The 
same  suspicion  was  generated  in  Manning  a  little  later.3 
Meanwhile  neither  Newman  nor  Manning  gained  insight 
into  the  fact  that  there  is  no  way  to  prevent  the  deploying 
of  private  judgment  in  interpreting  the  vast  system  of 
Rome,  except  by  turning  the  subjects  of  that  system  into 
a  kind  of  wooden  substitute  for  living  personalities. 

The  assignment  of  a  deciding  weight  to  the  patristic 
consensus  was  reckoned  by  Pusey  among  the  first  prin- 
ciples of  correct  procedure.  "We  have  ever  wished,"  he 
said,  "to  teach  what  is  agreeable  to  the  Old  or  the  New 
Testament,  and  as  to  the  test  of  its  being  agreeable,  we 
would  take,  not  our  own  private  judgments,  but  that  of 
the  universal  Church,  as  attested  by  the  Catholic  fathers 
and  ancient  bishops."4  Again  he  remarked :  "The  gen- 
uine English  system,  being  founded  on  Holy  Scripture 
as  interpreted  by  Christian  antiquity,  possesses  a  deep 
reverence  for  Scripture  as  the  source  of  the  faith,  and 
for  antiquity  as  its  witness  and  expositor."5  A  similar 
deference  toward  antiquity  is  contained  in  such  statements 
of  Pusey  as  emphasize  the  authority  of  the  Church  uni- 
versal, since  in  his  view  it  was  in  particular  the  ancient 
undivided  Church  which  gave  forth  decisions  that  can 
claim  to  be  representative  of  the  whole  body  of  Christians. 

1  Essay  on  the  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine,  edit,  of  1878,  p.  86. 
•Apologia,  p.  113.  »  Purcell,  Life  of  Manning,  I.  600. 

4  Letter  to  the  Bishop  of  Oxford,  printed  in  the  Tracts  for  the  Times,  p.  20. 
elbid.,  p.  40. 


338  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

From  this  point  of  view  he  wrote :  "Our  own  Church  is 
the  immediate,  the  Church  universal,  the  ultimate  visible 
authority:  she  is  the  representative  of  the  universal 
Church,  as  the  Church  universal  is  of  the  Lord.  .  .  . 
To  our  own  Church  we  owe  submission,  to  the  decisions 
of  the  Church  universal,  faith."1  "We  should  say,  All 
the  articles  of  the  creed  are  true,  as  being  the  teaching 
of  the  'Church  universal  throughout  the  world' ;  if,  then, 
an  individual  do  not  see  them  to  be  true,  he  is  in  fault 
somewhere ;  he  should  submit,  and  so  he  would  see.  The 
ultra  Protestants,  on  the  other  hand,  deny  this  necessity 
of  submission,  and  assert  that  to  be  truth  which  each 
individual  himself  derives  from  Holy  Scripture."2 

William  Palmer,  of  Worcester  College,  expressed  him- 
self in  terms  which  closely  resemble  those  employed  by 
Pusey.  "I  maintain,"  he  said,  "that  Christians  cannot 
possibly  admit  that  any  doctrine  established  by  universal 
tradition  can  be  otherwise  than  divinely,  infallibly  true. 
.  .  .  We  do  not  appeal  to  the  fathers  as  inspired  and 
authoritative  writers,  but  as  competent  witnesses  of  the 
faith  held  by  Christians  in  their  days.  .  .  .  The  doc- 
trine of  the  universal  Church  from  the  beginning  must 
condemn  that  of  all  modern  sects,  in  every  point  in  which 
they  differ  from  our  Catholic  and  apostolic  Churches; 
and  therefore  on  every  such  point  they  are  in  error  and 
misinterpret  Scripture,  and  the  Church  is  in  the  right."3 

Later  writers  of  the  Anglo-Catholic  school  have  not 
diverged  materially  from  the  original  Tractarians  as  re- 
spects the  necessity  of  granting  a  deciding  voice  to  Chris- 
tian antiquity.  Thus  a  contributor  to  a  volume  of  essays 

i  Letter  to  the  Bishop  of  Oxford,  printed  in  the  Tracts  for  the  Times,  p.  35. 
*  Letter  to  Tholuck,  Nov.  19,  1839,  cited  by  Liddon,  Life  of  Pusey,  II.  159. 
» A  Treatise  on  the  Church  of  Christ,  II.  36,  43,  46. 


PRINCIPLE    OF    AUTHORITY  339 

published  in  1868  asserted  the  universal  and  binding  au- 
thority of  the  doctrinal  determinations  of  the  primitive 
Church  in  this  emphatic  language:  "Whatever  was  be- 
lieved by  the  Church  previous  to  the  great  schism  is  the 
faith  of  the  divided  portions  since.  Nothing  that  any 
section  of  the  Church  has  done  since  that  time  can  change 
that.  No  pope,  no  patriarch,  no  council  of  a  portion  of 
the  Church  can  alter  one  hair's-breadth  the  decrees  of 
the  faith  before  determined.  Until  another  ecumenical 
council — composed  of  the  three  sections  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  the  Orthodox,  the  Roman,  the  Anglican — is  con- 
vened and  speaks,  there  can  be  no  change."1  Again,  in  a 
volume  of  recent  date,  a  representative  of  Anglo-Catholic 
teaching  declares  that  no  surrender  of  any  part  of  the 
ancient  standards  can  be  justified.  "The  inspiration  of 
Holy  Scripture,  the  absolute  certainty  of  the  Catholic 
creeds,  the  authority  of  the  universal  traditions  of  the 
Church,  these  things  are  too  sacred  to  make  a  present  of 
to  anyone  who  demands  the  surrender,  whether  in  the 
name  of  philosophy,  or  research,  or  progress,  or  any  name 
that  is  named."2 

In  the  citations  which  have  been  made  the  proposition 
is  evidently  contained  implicitly,  that  the  truly  ecumenical 
council,  or  the  general  council  representative  of  the  early 
undivided  Church,  must  be  credited  with  infallibility  on 
questions  of  faith.  Leading  Tractarians  not  only  gave  a 
ground  for  inferring  this  proposition,  but  formally  as- 
serted it.  Newman  noticed,  indeed,  that  Article  XXI  of 
the  Anglican  creed  seems  to  assert  the  fallibility  of  gen- 
eral councils,  but  by  supposing  a  distinction  between  gen- 


1  E.  L.  Blenkinsopp,  The  Church  and  the  World,  edited  by  Orby  Shipley, 
III.  554.  *  Whitham,  Holy  Orders,  1903,  p.  186. 


340  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

eral  councils  and  general  councils  he  thought  that  the 
article  could  be  saved  from  denying  the  infallibility  of 
such  general  councils  as  Anglo-Catholic  sentiment  wished 
to  exalt  to  a  perfectly  unimpeachable  authority.1  Pusey 
seems  not  to  have  been  in  any  wise  abashed  by  the  article. 
In  1836  he  wrote:  "A  real  general  or  universal  council, 
we  believe,  could  not  err,  because  of  our  Lord's  promise 
that  he  would  be  always  with  his  Church."2  Again  he 
wrote:  "We  believe  that,  although  councils  which  have 
been  termed  general,  or  which  Rome  has  claimed  to  be 
so,  have  erred,  no  real  ecumenical  council  ever  did."3 
Once  more,  he  declared :  "In  principle  I  agree  that  upon 
any  point  which  a  general  council  received  by  the  whole 
Church  should  pronounce  to  be  de  fide  private  judgment 
is  at  end."4 

The  reverse  side  of  the  profound  stress  laid  upon  Chris- 
tian antiquity,  namely,  the  disparagement  of  the  right 
asserted  by  the  Reformation  to  appeal  directly  to  Scrip- 
ture and  to  draw  from  its  pages  the  meaning  which  satis- 
fies intellect  and  conscience  in  the  present,  naturally  came 
to  expression.  Newman,  it  is  true,  discovered  at  one 
point  that  it  was  the  habit  of  the  fathers  to  follow  prac- 
tically the  line  of  procedure  insisted  upon  by  the  Re- 
formers, in  that  they  allowed  nothing  to  compete  with 
Scripture  in  respect  of  doctrinal  weight.  In  1835  he 
wrote  to  Froude :  "I  am  surprised  more  and  more  to  see 
how  the  fathers  insist  on  the  Scriptures  as  the  rule  of 
faith,  even  in  proving  the  most  subtle  parts  of  the  doctrine 
of  incarnation."5  Newman  seems  to  have  been  con- 

1  Tract  90.  2  Liddon,  Life  of  Pusey,  I.  402. 

*  Letter  to  the  Bishop  of  Oxford,  p.  29. 
4  Eirenicon,   1876,  part  iii,  p.  3. 

s  Cited  by  Walsh,  The  Secret  History  of  the  Oxford  Movement,  popular 
edit.,  p.  188. 


PRINCIPLE    OF    AUTHORITY  341 

vinced,  however,  that  it  would  not  answer  in  these  later 
times  to  follow  the  example  of  the  fathers  in  this  respect. 
In  a  passage  already  quoted  he  taught  the  necessity  of 
setting  Catholic  antiquity  over  Scripture  as  its  authorita- 
tive interpreter.  He  found  also  a  sufficient  ground  for 
doing  so  in  the  fact  that  "Scripture  is  not  so  clear  as  to 
hinder  ordinary  persons,  who  read  it  for  themselves,  from 
being  Sabellians,  or  Independents,  or  Wesleyans."1 
Pusey  was  equally  alive  to  the  hazard  of  permitting 
people  to  look  at  the  contents  of  Scripture  with  their  own 
eyes.  "All  true  theology,"  he  said,  "must  of  necessity  be 
scriptural ;  but  that  which  terms  itself  a  'scriptural  theol- 
ogy' has  always  been  a  stepping-stone  to  Socinianism 
and  rationalism.  It  begins  in  an  ungrateful  spirit,  setting 
at  naught  the  teaching  of  the  Church,  and  leaning  upon 
its  own  understanding."2  The  same  point  of  view  was 
expressed  by  a  writer  whose  speech  always  rose  to  the 
plane  of  hyperbole  when  he  was  declaiming  against  the 
sins  and  aberrations  of  Protestantism.  "Scripture  with- 
out an  authorized  interpreter,"  he  declared,  "is  worse 
than  useless."3  This  emphatic  statement  is  scarcely  com- 
plimentary to  the  self-evidencing  virtue  of  truth  in  its 
scriptural  form.  Indeed,  the  whole  line  of  deliverances 
which  confronts  us  on  this  subject  suggests  an  unhappy 
skepticism  on  the  competency  of  the  Bible  to  discharge 
the  office  of  revelation.  Nor  is  the  imputation  of  skep- 
ticism to  be  rebutted  by  the  claim  that  the  Bible  fulfills 
the  office  of  revelation  to  the  Church  as  a  whole.  To  sup- 
pose the  Scriptures  suited  to  guide  the  whole  body,  while 
they  are  not  suited  to  yield  salutary  guidance  to  the  in- 


1  Via  Media,  I.  149.  *  Letter  to  the  Bishop  of  Oxford,  p.  15. 

1  S.  Baring-Gould  in  The  Church  and  World,  III.  235. 


342  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

dividual,  is  to  perform  in  open  day  the  feat  of  dragging 
in  the  fallacy  of  the  universal. 

The  qualification  which  the  premises  of  thoroughgoing 
Anglo-Catholics  put  upon  the  function  of  the  Bible  implies 
by  logical  connection  a  limitation  of  the  function  of 
reason.  The  advocates  of  those  premises  may  not  have 
enlarged  greatly  upon  their  bearing  in  this  direction ;  but 
they  have  not  left  us  entirely  destitute  of  instruction  and 
admonition.  In  an  early  manifesto  we  have  a  caveat 
against  the  dangers  of  close  investigation  and  attempted 
amendment  of  old  formulas.  "A  taste  for  criticism,"  it 
is  said,  "grows  upon  the  mind.  When  we  begin  to  ex- 
amine and  take  to  pieces,  our  judgment  becomes  per- 
plexed, and  our  feelings  unsettled."1  Again,  it  is  urged 
that  all  attempts  rationally  to  construe  the  great  truths 
of  the  Christian  system  tend  rather  to  confusion  than  to 
clarification.2  From  a  later  exposition  we  have  the  fol- 
lowing more  emphatic  declaration:  "It  is  the  province 
of  reason  to  judge  the  natural;  with  the  supernatural  it 
has  no  right  to  interfere.  There  faith  is  our  guide,  stand- 
ing in  the  same  relation  to  it  that  reason  does  to  the 
natural.  And  so  it  is  that  the  controversy  between  Catho- 
lic and  Protestant,  no  less  than  between  Catholic  and 
rationalist,  is  from  the  metaphysical  point  of  view  the 
supernatural  against  the  natural;  from  the  logical  point 
of  view,  faith  against  reason."  Against  both  Protestant 
and  rationalist  "is  ranged  a  compact  united  body — the 
Catholic  army,  maintaining  the  supremacy  in  matters  of 
religion,  external  as  internal,  of  authority  over  intellect, 
of  faith  beyond  reason."3  Another  exponent  of  the 


'  Tract  3.  *  Tract  80. 

»  E.  G.  Wood,  in  The  Church  and  the  World.  III.  324. 


PRINCIPLE    OF    AUTHORITY  343 

Anglo-Catholic  platform  gave  in  different  terms  an 
equally  emphatic  expression  of  his  conviction  on  the  su- 
premacy of  ecclesiastical  authority  over  reason.  "We 
have  seen,"  he  exclaimed,  "and  do  see,  what  the  so- 
called  emancipation  of  the  intellect  has  done  for  Protes- 
tants. It  has  produced  all  the  heresy,  and  schism,  and 
infidelity  of  the  last  three  hundred  years,  from  Martin 
Luther  to  Joe  Smith."1  All  this  evil  and  trouble,  it 
seems  to  be  assumed,  would  have  been  avoided  had  not 
the  human  intellect  become  obstreperous  and  broken 
through  the  bounds  set  for  it  in  the  accumulations  of 
patristic  and  mediaeval  thought  and  fancy.  But  for  the 
Reformation,  Christendom  might  have  remained  united 
upon  such  beliefs  as  that  it  is  right  to  burn  heretics  and 
witches,  to  damn  unbaptized  infants,  and  to  visit  upon  the 
unsaved  the  infliction  of  literal  fire  for  endless  ages. 

A  deviation  from  the  assumption  ordinarily  entertained 
in  the  Oxford  school  was  made  by  Newman  between 
1842  and  1845.  I*  was  at  this  time  that  ne  thought  out 
and  prepared  his  Essay  on  the  Development  of  Christian 
Doctrine.  A  full  consideration  of  this  writing  would  not 
be  appropriate  here,  since  it  belongs  rather  to  the  Roman 
Catholic  than  to  the  Anglo-Catholic  period  of  its  author's 
career.  It  is  no  injustice  to  say  that  it  was  framed  for 
the  purpose  of  conquering  the  difficulties  placed  by  early 
Christian  history  in  the  way  of  accepting  the  Roman 
Catholic  system.  The  thing  to  be  achieved  was  to  ex- 
plain the  glaring  contrasts  between  patristic  thought  and 
practice  and  later  Roman  thought  and  practice.  For  in- 
stance, the  first  Christian  age  brings  to  view  no  such 
official  as  a  pope  in  the  mediaeval  or  modern  sense;  and 

1  E.  L.  Blenkinsopp,  in  The  Church  and  the  World,  I.  192. 


344  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

the  demand  was  to  justify  the  appearance  and  divine  right 
of  the  pope  as  known  in  later  history.  Again,  so  far  was 
the  Church  of  the  first  Christian  age  from  honoring  the 
Virgin  in  the  later  Roman  sense  that  she  was  included  in 
the  prayers  which  were  offered  for  the  imperfect  dead  in 
common ;  the  demand,  accordingly,  was  to  show  the  legit- 
imacy of  advancing  to  a  conception  of  the  Virgin  as  the 
crowned  queen  of  heaven,  who  is  so  transcenclently  ex- 
alted above  the  need  of  the  prayers  of  others  that  all 
others  are  dependent  upon  her  efficacious  intercessions. 
How  did  Newman  meet  requirements  of  this  kind?  By 
postulating  a  theory  of  development  in  which  the  assump- 
tion rules  that  perfectly  authoritative  doctrines  and  in- 
stitutions may  have  existed  only  in  germ  and  have  been 
practically  hidden  from  sight  at  the  primary  stage,  their 
disclosure  and  definition  and  acceptance  by  the  Christian 
body  being  brought  about  through  successive  stages.  The 
ultimate  form  may  look  very  unlike  the  original;  but  if 
only  it  was  reached  by  a  sufficiently  continuous  process, 
and  without  a  reversal  of  type,  it  cannot  be  challenged 
as  invalid.  Formally  Newman  did  not  deny  that  corrup- 
tion and  caricature  of  an  element  in  original  Christianity 
might  ensue  from  excessive  development,  even  though 
that  development  should  run  on  in  a  straight  line.  How- 
ever, in  applying  his  theory  in  behalf  of  historic  Roman- 
ism he  as  good  as  ignored  this  liability  to  corruption  and 
caricature  by  excess.  And  with  this  capital  weakness  in 
his  apologetic  construction  another  was  conjoined.  He 
by  no  means  justified  an  ecclesiastical  prerogative  to  place 
the  seal  of  infallibility  on  particular  formulations  of  the 
supposed  outcome  of  antecedent  developments.  What 
makes  it  certain  that  the  decrees  of  popes  and  Roman 


PRINCIPLE    OF    AUTHORITY  345 

assemblies  have  any  valid  claim  to  be  taken  as  finalities  ? 
Who  can  afford  substantial  assurance  that  Romanism  is 
anything  more  or  better  than  an  imperfect  type,  which 
through  conflict  with  an  opposed  type  may  contribute  to 
movement,  but  yet  in  itself  is  largely  aside  from  the  path 
to  the  true  goal?  Plainly,  vastly  more  is  needed  to  jus- 
tify historical  Romanism  than  is  furnished  in  the  theory 
of  development.  Newman  virtually  confessed  as  much 
in  supplementing  his  theory  by  an  arbitrary  appeal  to 
convenience  as  the  test  of  truth.  "The  most  obvious  an- 
swer," he  said,  "to  the  question  why  we  yield  to  the 
authority  of  the  Church  in  the  questions  and  develop- 
ments of  faith  is  that  some  authority  there  must  be  if 
there  is  a  revelation,  and  other  authority  there  is  none 
but  she.  .  .  .  The  absolute  need  of  a  spiritual  suprem- 
acy is  at  present  the  strongest  of  arguments  in  favor  of 
its  supply."1  Some  of  our  contemporaries  have  found  it 
very  convenient,  in  the  interest  of  an  unbroken  placidity, 
to  deny  the  existence  of  disease,  sin,  and  death.  The 
majority  of  sane  people,  nevertheless,  continue  to  reckon 
with  these  things  as  extremely  real.  Theorizers  are  not 
allowed  to  install  an  ideal  world  in  place  of  the  actual, 
just  because  it  suits  a  demand  of  convenience.  No  more 
is  it  warrantable,  on  the  plea  of  convenience,  to  thrust 
an  ideal  Church  into  the  place  of  the  actual.  Newman 
in  his  Essay  on  Development  may  have  done  something 
to  explain  the  origin  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  but 
so  far  as  justifying  her  peculiar  dogmas  and  assumptions 
is  concerned  he  accomplished  next  to  nothing. 

Newman's  theory  evidently  agreed  ill  with  the  de- 
mands  of   the   Anglo-Catholic   scheme.      It   tended   to 

1  Essay  on  the  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine,  1846,  pp.  126,  127. 


346  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

abridge  the  normative  character  assigned  therein  to  Cath- 
olic antiquity,  and  to  give  the  preference  to  later  deter- 
minations of  doctrine,  though,  as  has  been  noticed,  it 
failed  to  gain  any  secure  basis  for  faith  in  the  finality 
of  the  determinations  reached  at  any  given  stage.  Anglo- 
Catholics  could  not  regard  it  with  complacency.  Glad- 
stone, whose  High-Church  predilections  at  that  time  were 
rather  pronounced,  and  who  held  friendly  relations  with 
some  of  the  men  affiliated  with  the  Oxford  movement, 
declared  that  Newman's  reasoning  seemed  "to  place 
Christianity  on  the  verge  of  a  precipice."1  Manning's 
judgment  was  equally  unfavorable.  "Newman's  mind," 
he  wrote,  "is  subtle  even  to  excess,  and  to  us  seems  cer- 
tainly to  be  skeptical."2  Pusey  had  several  objections  to 
offer.  He  considered  Newman's  doctrine  of  development 
"more  likely  to  be  effectively  employed  in  advancing  de- 
structive theories  than  in  the  interests  of  the  creed  of  any 
portion  of  the  Christian  Church."  He  also  regarded  it 
as  opposed  to  the  Vincentian  rule  of  the  quod  ubique, 
quod  semper,  quod  ab  omnibus,  which  to  his  mind  was 
the  base  of  the  Tractarian  movement.3  Furthermore,  he 
judged  that  it  was  obviously  out  of  harmony  with  as- 
sumptions which  had  been  given  a  place  in  Roman  Catho- 
lic standards.  "The  Council  of  Trent,"  he  said,  "goes, 
not  on  what  Newman  goes,  development,  but  on  apostolic 
tradition,  and  that  in  a  very  strict  sense  [as  containing 
things],  'which,  received  by  the  apostles  from  the  mouth 
of  Christ  himself,  or  from  the  apostles  themselves,  the 
Holy  Ghost  dictating,  have  come  down  even  to  us,  trans- 
mitted, as  it  were,  from  hand  to  hand.'  "4  This  last 


1  Purcell,  Life  of  Manning,  I.  315.  •Ibid.,  I.  311. 

»  Liddon,  Life  of  Pusey,  II.  303-  *  Ibid.,  III.  207,  208. 


APOSTOLICAL    SUCCESSION  347 

criticism  was  by  no  means  groundless.  A  practical  resort 
was  doubtless  made  to  Newman's  theory  in  the  bringing 
in  of  the  dogmas  of  the  immaculate  conception  of  the 
Virgin  and  the  infallibility  of  the  pope;  but  it  plainly 
contravenes  the  standpoint  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  and 
has  been  far  from  claiming  the  unmixed  approbation  of 
Roman  Catholic  authorities  in  recent  decades.  As  will 
be  noticed  subsequently,  it  is  implicitly  condemned  in  the 
encyclical  of  Pius  X  against  "Modernism." 

III. — THE  DOCTRINE  OF  APOSTOLICAL  SUCCESSION 

In  their  ambition  to  awaken  such  a  zeal  in  the  Anglican 
constituency  as  would  rescue  the  Church  of  England  from 
threatened  peril  the  original  Tractarians  had  a  motive 
to  distinguish  that  Church  as  widely  as  possible  from  all 
communions  of  Dissenters.  In  fulfilling  this  purpose  the 
expedient  most  immediately  suggested  was  a  proclama- 
tion of  the  virtue  and  necessity  of  apostolical  succession. 
The  proclamation  was  made  in  vigorous  terms.  In  the 
first  of  the  Tracts  for  the  Times  the  writer  remarks: 
"I  fear  we  have  neglected  the  real  ground  on  which  our 
authority  is  built — our  apostolical  descent"  In  Tract  4 
we  read,  "Why  should  we  talk  so  much  of  an  establish- 
ment, and  so  little  of  an  apostolical  succession?  Why 
should  we  not  seriously  endeavor  to  impress  our  people 
with  this  plain  truth — that  by  separating  themselves  from 
our  communion  they  separate  themselves  not  only  from  a 
decent,  orderly,  useful  society,  but  from  the  only  Church 
in  this  realm  which  has  a  right  to  be  quite  sure  that  she 
has  the  Lord's  body  to  give  to  his  people?"  In  Tract  35 
we  are  taught  that  the  promise  of  grace  and  power  for 


348  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

the  fulfillment  of  the  high  commission  which  was  given 
by  Christ  to  the  apostles  passed  over  from  them  to  their 
successors,  the  bishops.  "But  to  those  who  have  not  re- 
ceived the  commission,  our  Lord  has  given  no  such 
promise.  A  person  not  commissioned  from  the  bishop 
may  use  the  words  of  baptism,  and  sprinkle  or  bathe  with 
water  on  earth,  but  there  is  no  promise  from  Christ  that 
such  a  man  shall  admit  souls  to  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
A  person  not  commissioned  may  break  bread,  and  pour 
out  wine,  and  pretend  to  give  the  Lord's  Supper,  but  it 
can  afford  no  comfort  to  any  to  receive  it  at  his  hands, 
because  there  is  no  warrant  from  Christ  to  lead  communi- 
cants to  suppose  that  while  he  does  so  here  on  earth  they 
will  be  partakers  in  the  Saviour's  heavenly  body  and 
blood.  And  as  for  the  person  himself,  who  takes  upon 
himself  without  warrant  to  minister  in  holy  things,  he  is 
all  the  while  treading  in  the  footsteps  of  Korah,  Dathan, 
and  Abiram,  whose  awful  punishment  you  read  of  in  the 
book  of  Numbers."  Tract  47,  somewhat  after  the  pat- 
tern of  mediaeval  thinking,  which  provided  in  the  limbus 
puerorum  a  kind  of  intermediate  place  between  the  proper 
heaven  and  the  proper  hell,  postulates  a  midway  station 
for  those  outside  the  lines  of  apostolical  succession.  "So 
far  from  its  being  a  strange  thing,"  says  the  writer,  "that 
Protestant  sects  are  not  in  Christ  in  the  same  fullness  we 
are,  it  is  more  accordant  to  the  scheme  of  the  world  that 
they  should  lie  between  us  and  heathenism.  It  would 
be  strange  if  there  were  but  two  states,  one  absolutely 
of  favor,  one  of  disfavor."  To  this  rather  remarkable 
specimen  of  classification  (from  the  pen  of  Newman)  an 
agreeable  supplement  was  added  by  Pusey.  In  his 
Eirenicon  he  wrote:  "I  do  not  mean  any  disparagement 


APOSTOLICAL    SUCCESSION  349 

to  any  pious  Presbyterians,  but,  believing  the  holy  eu- 
charist  to  be  what  we,  in  common  with  the  whole  ancient 
Church,  know  it  to  be,  we  cannot  but  know  that  they  who 
receive  it  worthily  have  a  much  greater  closeness  of  union 
with  our  Lord  than  they  who  do  not.  Presbyterians  have 
what  they  believe;  we  have  what  we  believe.  But  they 
who  have  observed  pious  Presbyterians  and  pious  English 
Catholics  have  discerned  among  our  people  a  spiritual 
life  of  a  kind  which  is  not  among  theirs;  in  a  word,  a 
sacramental  life."1 

Among  those  who  figured  in  the  initiation  of  the  Ox- 
ford movement  William  Palmer  had  the  liberality  to 
admit  a  qualification  of  the  necessity  of  apostolical  suc- 
cession for  the  existence  of  a  true  Church.  While  it  was 
certain  to  his  mind  that  none  of  the  sects  in  England  was 
any  part  of  the  true  Church,  or  had  any  excuse  for  cum- 
bering the  ground  sacred  to  the  Establishment,  he 
granted,  in  harmony  with  the  early  Anglican  divines, 
that  the  Lutheran  and  Reformed  communions  on  the 
Continent  might  be  regarded  as  possessed  of  ecclesiastical 
legitimacy  in  spite  of  their  defects.  He  said :  "Since  the 
Churches  of  the  foreign  Reformation,  during  the  six- 
teenth century,  were  not  devoid  of  principles  which,  if 
rightly  applied,  would  lead  to  unity  in  faith  and  com- 
munion; since  there  is  no  evidence  that  they  were  guilty 
of  schism  or  heresy,  it  seems  impossible  to  deny  that  they 
constituted,  on  the  whole,  a  portion  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  though  it  is  unquestionable  that  errors  and  even 
heresies  were  taught  by  some  of  their  members.  In  this 
respect,  however,  they  were  superior  to  the  Roman 
Churches,  in  which  errors  and  idolatries  of  a  far  more 

'  Part  i,  p.  275. 


350  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

pernicious  description  were  widely  disseminated."1 
Palmer  conceded  on  similar  grounds  that  the  Protestant 
body  as  originally  established  in  Scotland  stood  within  the 
limits  of  the  true  Church.  He  concluded,  however,  that 
the  Scotch  Presbyterians  in  driving  out  episcopacy,  after 
the  Revolution  of  1688,  were  guilty  of  a  great  act  of 
schism,  and  that  consequently  their  ministers  have  no 
lawful  standing,  and  are  incompetent  to  administer  the 
sacraments. 

We  have  not  discovered  that  Palmer's  modification  of 
the  demand  for  apostolical  succession  has  been  seconded 
by  Anglo-Catholic  writers.  Certainly  it  has  been  their 
general  habit  to  deny  the  existence  of  a  valid  ministry  in 
Churches  deprived  of  that  succession.  Such  statements 
as  the  following  have  been  put  on  record  by  them :  "The 
Greek,  the  Roman,  the  Anglican  are  all  portions  of  the 
one  Catholic  Church,  because  they  hold  the  common  faith 
and  retain  the  one  priesthood.  .  .  .  The  Protestant 
bodies  in  Europe  form  no  portion  of  the  one  body,  because 
they  have  renounced  the  one  priesthood.  They  estab- 
lished a  system  independent  of  the  Church,  external  and 
even  hostile  to  it :  consequently  they  have  cut  themselves 
off  from  participation  of  the  one  Spirit  as  living  in  the 
Church  and  flowing  through  the  sacraments,  which  are 
the  veins  and  arteries  of  the  one  body."2  "There  is,  and 
can  be,  no  real  and  true  Church  apart  from  the  one  society 
which  the  apostles  founded,  and  which  has  been  propa- 
gated only  in  the  line  of  the  episcopal  succession."3  "A 
Church  stands  or  falls  by  the  apostolic  succession.  .  .  . 
There  never  has  been  a  Church  without  a  bishop,  and 


1  A  Treatise  on  the  Church  of  Christ,  I.  aooff. 

nd  the  \\ 
Church,  1873,  p.  83. 


«»    .ijcauac  uii   LIIC  %^unwu  UL  i^iinai,  x. 

2  E.  L.  Blenkinsopo,  in  The  Church  and  the  World,  1867,  I.  189. 
»  E.  M.  Goulburn,  The  Holy  Catholic  Ch 


APOSTOLICAL    SUCCESSION  351 

there  never  can  be."1  "We  must  try  clearly  to  grasp  the 
importance  of  this  doctrine  of  an  apostolical  ministry,  for 
without  it  the  Church  would  be  deprived  of  all  sacra- 
ments except  baptism  and  holy  matrimony."2  "The 
Churches  which  have  a  ministry  of  apostolic  descent  fully 
admit  that  the  teachers  of  other  Christian  communities 
may  possess  excellent  natural  qualifications  and  many 
genuine  spiritual  gifts,  but  they  do  not  admit  that  there 
is  any  clear  ground  for  believing  that  such  teachers  can 
either  remit  sin  or  bestow  the  Holy  Ghost  or  feed  human 
souls  with  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ,  or  have  any 
share  in  bestowing  the  gift  of  spiritual  authority  which 
Saint  Paul  describes  as  given  by  the  laying  on  of  his 
hands."3  "While  the  validity  of  any  other  than  an  epis- 
copally  ordained  ministry  is  open  to  serious  objection,  yet 
it  might  be  charitably  admitted  that  a  prophetical  office,  if 
this  is  all  that  sectarians  seriously  claim,  might  be  exer- 
cised by  license  and  not  by  ordination."4  "Ordination  is 
clearly  of  the  nature  of  a  sacrament.  .  .  .  The  eucharist 
cannot  be  validly  consecrated  except  by  one  who  has  re- 
ceived episcopal  ordination  to  the  priesthood."5  As  some 
of  these  extracts  indicate,  the  Anglo-Catholic  teaching 
does  not  assume  that  those  who  are  outside  the  lines  of 
an  episcopacy  claiming  apostolic  descent  are  wholly  desti- 
tute of  divine  grace ;  but  there  is  no  mistaking  the  trend 
of  that  teaching  as  enforcing  the  conclusion  that  all  such 
people  are  deprived  of  proper  ministerial  offices  and  are 
relatively  in  a  God-forsaken  condition. 

Emphasis  upon  the  doctrine  of  a  necessary  apostolical 

'  V.  Staley,  The  Catholic  Religion,  1894,  pp.  23,  31. 

3  A.  G.  Mortimer,  Catholic  Faith  and  Practice,  1897,  I.  87. 

3  L.  Pullan,  The  Christian  Tradition,  1902,  p.  69. 

4  C.  C.  Graf  ton  (Bishop  of  Fond  du  Lac),  Pusey  and  the  Church  Revival, 
190:1,  p.  49.  *  A.  R.  Whitham,  Holy  Orders,  1903,  pp.  80,  115. 


352  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

succession  has  often  been  conjoined  by  Anglo-Catholics 
with  a  peculiar  theory  of  the  conditions  of  the  presence 
and  operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Taken  according  to 
the  apparent  sense  of  the  terms  in  which  it  is  expressed, 
the  theory  implies  that  the  Holy  Spirit  obtained  its 
primary  reservoir,  in  this  world,  in  the  apostolic  group, 
and  thence  by  means  of  continuous  physical  connections 
has  gained  distribution  through  the  widening  company 
of  believers.  In  the  first  of  the  Tracts  for  the  Times  we 
read:  "The  Lord  Jesus  Christ  gave  his  Spirit  to  his 
apostles;  they  in  turn  laid  their  hands  on  those  who 
should  succeed  them;  and  these  again  on  others,  and  so 
the  sacred  gift  has  been  handed  down  to  our  present 
bishops."  Froude  gave  an  equivalent  statement,  in  repre- 
senting advocates  of  the  churchly  view  as  holding,  "that 
before  Jesus  Christ  left  the  world,  he  breathed  his  Holy 
Spirit  into  the  apostles ;  giving  them  the  power  of  trans- 
mitting this  precious  gift  to  others  by  prayer  and  the 
imposition  of  hands;  that  the  apostles  did  so  transmit  it 
to  others,  and  they  again  to  others ;  and  that  in  this  way 
it  has  been  preserved  in  the  world  to  the  present  day."1 
In  more  recent  versions  of  the  theory  language  of  like 
import  is  employed,  as  appears  in  the  following  specimen 
statements :  "Without  the  divinely  appointed  ministry  of 
the  Church  we  have  no  guarantee  that  the  flow  of  cove- 
nanted grace  would  continue.  Should  the  apostolic  suc- 
cession die  out,  there  would  be  need  of  a  second  appoint- 
ment directly  by  our  Lord,  and  of  a  second  day  of 
Pentecost  with  a  fresh  outpouring  of  the  Holy  Spirit."2 
"In  them  [the  twelve  apostles  immediately  after  Pente- 


1  Remains,  vol.  I,  part  ii,  p.  41. 
3Staley,  The  Catholic  Religion,  p.  23. 


APOSTOLICAL    SUCCESSION  353 

cost]  conjointly  dwelt  for  the  present  the  fullness  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  in  so  far  forth  as  he  was  given  from  Christ 
to  be  transmitted  for  the  sanctification  of  mankind.  Per- 
sonal graces,  administrative  graces,  all  the  diversities 
of  gifts  to  be  given  in  many  divisions  to  men  in  the 
Church  through  human  agency,  were  to  issue  from  that 
great  gift  which,  hitherto  undivided  except  to  twelve 
holders,  rested  for  such  transmission  upon  them  alone. 
As  in  the  case  of  the  miraculous  feeding  of  the  multitude 
of  four  or  five  thousand,  the  Lord  gave  to  his  disciples, 
and  the  disciples  to  the  multitude,  so  the  gifts  which  were 
to  sanctify  the  innumerable  company  of  the  members  of 
the  body  of  Christ  in  all  future  ages  should  flow  down 
from  one  single  source  through  twelve  channels."1  "Be- 
fore Pentecost  the  Church  was  like  the  body  of  Adam 
ere  God  breathed  into  it  the  breath  of  life.  It 
was  as  yet  like  Solomon's  unconsecrated  temple  not 
filled  with  the  Spirit.  At  Pentecost  the  Holy  Spirit, 
yet  not  leaving  the  divine  humanity  in  which  with- 
out measure  he  dwelt,  filled  the  temple.  .  .  .  Christ  in 
his  now  mediatorial  reign  at  the  right  hand  of  power  no 
longer  prays  for  the  world,  but  in  and  for  his  Church. 
.  .  .  Out  of  it  none  have  a  covenanted  share  in  his 
redemption  or  priestly  intercession.  The  Church  indwelt 
by  the  Spirit  is  the  organ  of  Christ  and  speaks  and  acts 
with  his  authority."2  The  extraordinary  external  mani- 
festations of  the  Spirit's  presence  were  withdrawn  after 
the  early  period.  "But  his  gifts  of  internal  grace  to 
illuminate  and  sanctify  the  mind  and  heart  are  as  much 
needed  now  as  then.  These  gifts,  accordingly,  are  merci- 

i  G.  Moberly,  Bampton  Lectures  for  1868,  p.  40,  approvingly  cited  by 
W.  C.  E.  Newbolt,  Religion,  1899,  p.  242. 

3  Graf  ton,  Pusey  and  the  Church  Revival,  pp.  yff. 


354  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

fully  continued  in  the  Church,  and  the  means  of  con- 
ferring them  remain  the  same,  the  ministry  of  those 
whom  our  Lord  commissions  to  act  in  his  name."1 
Though  the  last  two  writers  do  not,  in  the  cited  words, 
speak  formally  of  apostolical  succession,  their  general 
standpoint  leaves  no  room  for  doubt  that  they  recognized 
in  that  succession  the  great  appointed  channel  for  the  dis- 
tribution of  the  gift  of  the  Spirit.  According  to  this 
whole  group  of  writers  any  ministry  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
outside  the  province  of  the  succession  must  be  rated  as 
something  beyond  and  apart  from  the  regular  economy 
of  grace,  a  streamlet  which  uncovenanted  mercy  permits 
to  flow  in  vagrant  and  unconsecrated  channels. 

In  connection  with  this  theme  one  might  easily  be 
tempted  to  see  a  providential  recompense  to  Anglo- 
Catholics  for  their  fond  leanings  toward  the  Church  of 
Rome.  Certainly,  if  any  wages  of  affliction  became  due 
on  that  score,  the  payment  could  not  have  been  made 
through  a  more  appropriate  medium  than  the  apostolical 
letter  of  Leo  XIII,  whereby  it  was  declared  that  "the 
ordinations  carried  out  according  to  the  Anglican  rite 
have  been  and  are  absolutely  null  and  void."2  In  this 
document  the  pope  brought  forward  three  main  grounds 
for  the  given  decision.  He  alleged,  in  the  first  place,  that 
ordinations  performed  according  to  the  Edwardean  or- 
dinal had  been  treated  by  his  predecessors  as  invalid.  He 
contended,  in  the  second  place,  that  the  form  of  ordina- 
tion, both  in  relation  to  the  priestly  and  the  episcopal 
office,  as  prescribed  by  the  Edwardean  rite,  and  as 


1  A.  C.  A.  Hall  (Bishop  of  Vermont),  Confirmation,  p.  16. 
•The  Apostolical  Letter  Apostolicae  Curse,  1896. 


APOSTOLICAL    SUCCESSION  355 

used  for  a  long  period,  was  defective  in  not  defining 
properly  the  office  or  power  intended  to  be  conferred, 
and  that  the  amendment  of  this  defect  came  too  late 
to  render  any  service  in  rescuing  Anglican  orders. 
Finally,  he  maintained  that  the  modifications  of  the  old 
rite,  which  were  made  in  constructing  the  Edwardean 
ordinal,  afford  clear  evidence  that  those  who  employed 
that  ordinal  did  not  associate  with  their  acts  the  inten- 
tion necessary  for  valid  ordinations,  namely,  the  intention 
to  institute  true  priests,  or  those  endowed  with  the  prerog- 
ative to  offer  the  sacrifice  of  Christ's  body  and  blood. 

A  very  scanty  demand  rests  upon  us  to  weigh  the  pope's 
arguments.  Indeed,  to  go  into  the  matter  at  length  would 
be  incongruous  with  our  standpoint,  since  we  consider 
it  a  piece  of  utter  rashness  to  hang  any  real  interest  on 
the  integrity  of  either  the  Roman  or  the  Anglican  suc- 
cession. It  has  never  entered  into  our  heart  to  conceive 
that  the  kingdom  of  God  in  the  world  should  be  at  the 
mercy  of  such  trivialities.  We  may  be  permitted,  how- 
ever, to  express  the  conviction  that  respondents  in  behalf 
of  Anglican  orders  have  very  fairly  answered  the  first 
two  objections  of  Leo  XIII.1  History  seems  to  show  that 
Roman  authority  in  the  sixteenth  century  did  not  steadily 
and  consistently  treat  the  ordinations  performed  by  the 
Edwardean  rite  as  invalid.  Respecting  the  alleged  want 
of  a  definite  designation  of  the  office  intended  in  the  con- 
secratory  act,  it  can  legitimately  be  urged  that  the  objec- 
tion is  superficial,  since  the  rite  taken  as  a  whole  left  no 
ambiguity  on  that  point.  The  third  objection  involves 
greater  difficulty,  at  least  for  those  who  wish  to  conserve 

*  Lowndes,  Vindication  of  Anglican  Orders;  Whitham,  Holy  Orders; 
Mortimer,  Catholic  Faith  and  Practice;  Moberly,  Ministerial  Priesthood, 
Appendix. 


356  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

the  sacerdotal  standpoint.  Anglo-Catholics  are  obliged 
to  admit  that  the  Prayer  Book  affords  no  counterpart  to 
the  Roman  doctrine  of  the  eucharistic  sacrifice.  "Neither 
in  the  Book  of  1549  nor  in  that  of  1552  was  there  any 
explicit  assertion  of  the  eucharistic  sacrifice."1  There  is 
very  good  ground,  therefore,  for  questioning  whether 
those  who  undertook  to  convey  orders  according  to  the 
Edwardean  rite  put  into  their  acts  the  intention  which  the 
modern  Roman  theory  declares  to  be  necessary.  There  is 
a  chance,  to  be  sure,  to  retaliate  in  kind,  by  questioning 
the  intention  of  the  apostles  and  their  immediate  succes- 
sors to  institute  a  sacrificing  priesthood  after  the  Roman 
pattern.  Indeed,  the  historical  evidence  is  emphatically 
against  the  supposition  that  they  had  the  least  design  of 
that  sort.  So,  on  the  premises  of  Leo  XIII,  the  Roman 
priesthood  must  be  regarded  as  not  of  apostolic  or  primi- 
tive institution — in  other  words,  as  resting  on  fictitious 
claims.  But  to  employ  this  way  of  getting  even  with  the 
pope  hardly  suits  the  standpoint  of  the  Anglo-Catholics. 
Their  fondness  for  the  notion  of  a  sacrificing  priesthood 
tends  to  rob  them  of  the  advantage  of  an  appeal  to  the 
facts  of  apostolic  and  early  patristic  thought  and  purpose. 
They  could  make  a  much  better  case  against  Roman 
criticism  if  they  would  consent  to  return  to  the  standpoint 
of  the  Anglican  fathers  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

IV. — SACRAMENTAL  TEACHING 

Under  this  topic  it  will  be  our  endeavor  to  give  a  con- 
densed view  of  Anglo-Catholic  teaching  on  the  relative 
importance  of  the  sacraments  in  the  Christian  system,  on 

1  Darwell  Stone,  The  Holy  Communion,  1904,  p.  147.     Compare  G.  R. 
Prynne,  The  Truth  and  Reality  of  the  Eucharistic  Sacrifice,  1894,  p.  132. 


SACRAMENTAL    TEACHING  357 

the  function  of  baptism,  on  the  eucharist,  and  on  sacra- 
mental confession  and  absolution. 

Respecting  the  first  of  these  points  it  was  no  uncertain 
note  which  was  sounded  in  the  Tracts  for  the  Times. 
The  advertisement  to  the  first  volume  of  these  historic 
documents  took  pains  to  emphasize  the  importance  of 
lodging  in  the  mind  of  the  Anglican  child  the  firm  con- 
viction that  "the  sacraments,  not  preaching,  are  the 
sources  of  divine  grace."  Tract  35  represents  that  the 
pastor  holds  the  keys  of  heaven,  in  that  the  ministration 
of  the  sacraments  is  committed  to  his  hands.  In  the 
advertisement  to  the  second  volume  occurs  this  extraor- 
dinary passage:  "There  are  those  whose  word  will  eat 
as  doth  a  canker ;  and  it  is  to  be  feared  that  we  have  been 
overnear  certain  celebrated  Protestant  teachers,  Puritan 
or  Latitudinarian,  and  have  suffered  in  consequence. 
Hence  we  have  almost  embraced  the  doctrine  that  God 
conveys  grace  only  through  the  instrumentality  of  the 
mental  energies,  that  is,  through  faith,  prayer,  active 
spiritual  contemplation  or  [what  is  called]  communion 
with  God,  in  contradiction  to  the  primitive  view,  accord- 
ing to  which  the  Church  and  her  sacraments  are  the 
ordained  and  direct  visible  means  of  conveying  to  the 
soul  what  is  in  itself  supernatural  and  unseen.  For  ex- 
ample, would  not  most  men  maintain,  on  the  first  view  of 
the  subject,  that  to  administer  the  Lord's  Supper  to  in- 
fants, and  to  the  dying  and  apparently  insensible,  how- 
ever consistently  pious  and  believing  in  their  past  lives, 
must  be,  under  all  circumstances,  and  in  every  conceiv- 
able case,  a  superstition  ?  and  yet  neither  practice  is  with- 
out the  sanction  of  primitive  usage."  In  Tract  73  the 
sacraments  are  described  "as  the  principal  channels 


358  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

through   which  Christ's  merits  are  applied   to  individ- 
uals." 

Later  representatives  of  the  Anglo-Catholic  school 
found  it  difficult  to  transcend  these  statements,  but  some 
of  them  certainly  did  not  fall  behind.  In  a  series  of 
essays,  which  we  have  often  had  occasion  to  cite,  one  of 
the  contributors  furnishes  this  succinct  description  of  the 
method  of  salvation :  "Baptism,  confirmation,  com- 
munion, and  penance  are  the  means  whereby  union  with 
Jesus  is  begun  and  strengthened,  is  sustained  and  re- 
stored."1 The  same  writer  gives  the  following  inclusive 
test  of  religious  character:  "All  persons  are  religious 
persons  who  are  in  sacramental  union  with  the  man 
Christ  Jesus."2  A  companion  essayist  remarks:  "The 
sacramental  system  is,  in  a  true  sense,  the  continuation 
of  the  presence  of  Christ  upon  earth  erected  by  himself 
upon  earth  as  man,  and  perpetuated  through  and  in  the 
Church,  which  is  his  body,  to  the  end  of  the  world."3 
The  most  pronounced  Roman  sacramentalist  would  not 
care  to  revise  the  following  statements :  "A  living  body 
must  have  the  means  of  growth  and  self-propagation, 
and  of  supplying  the  waste  of  its  tissues,  all  which  are 
effected  in  Christ's  body,  the  Church,  by  the  sacraments. 
.  .  .  All  grace  flows  from  the  incarnation,  and  chiefly 
through  the  sacraments.  .  .  .  The  Christian  sacra- 
ments do  not  merely  signify  grace;  they  actually  confer 
it.  Their  action  is  ex  opere  operate,  not  ex  opere  operan- 
tis.  The  phrase  opus  opera-turn  implies  that  the  efficacy 
of  the  action  of  the  sacraments  does  not  depend  on  any- 
thing human,  but  solely  on  the  will  of  God  as  expressed 


1  W.  Humphrey,  in  the  Church  and  the  World,  II.  508. 
*Ibid.,  II.,  p.  515.  » Ibid.,  II.,  p.  533. 


SACRAMENTAL    TEACHING  359 

by  Christ's  institution  and  promise."1  From  the  same 
source  we  have  a  statement  which  may  properly  recall 
the  Brahmanical  view  of  priestly  rites  as  central  to  the 
system  of  things  and  necessary  to  its  sustentation.  "The 
eucharist,"  it  is  said,  "is  to  the  moral  world  what  the 
sun  is  to  the  material."2 

The  reservoir  theory  of  grace,  to  which  there  was 
occasion  to  refer  in  connection  with  the  topic  of  the  pre- 
ceding section,  came  naturally  to  expression  in  discus- 
sions on  the  functions  of  the  sacraments.  Stated  in  brief 
the  theory  is  that  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  the  fountain  of 
covenanted  grace,  resides  in  the  glorified  humanity  of 
Christ,  and  is  imparted  thence  through  the  medium  of 
the  sacraments.  A  pretty  full  glimpse  of  this  theory  may 
be  obtained  from  the  following  passages:  "It  is  one  of 
the  consequences  of  the  resurrection  and  ascension  of 
our  Lord  that  a  characteristic  of  the  dealings  of  God  with 
souls  under  the  Christian  dispensation  is  that  the  channel 
of  covenanted  grace  between  God  and  man  is  the  glorified 
humanity  of  the  risen  and  ascended  Christ.  .  .  .  Since 
the  day  of  Pentecost,  the  day  of  the  creation  of  the 
Christian  Church,  the  ordinary  way  in  which  God  be- 
stows grace  on  the  souls  of  men  is  through  the  glorified 
humanity  of  our  Lord  and  the  working  of  God  the  Holy 
Ghost.  The  closest  means  of  union  with  the  glorified 
humanity  of  Christ  and  the  most  immediate  mode  of 
contact  with  God  the  Holy  Ghost  are  in  the  mystical  body 
of  Christ,  that  is,  the  Church,  and  are  open  to  man  in 
the  use  of  the  sacraments.  .  .  .  Sanctification  is  ac- 
complished in  ordinary  cases  through  the  instrumentality 


J  Mortimer,  Catholic  Faith  and  Practice,  I.  86,  100,  122. 
*  Ibid.,  I.  251. 


360  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

of  the  sacraments,  which  unite  the  soul  to  the  humanity 
of  Christ  and  bestow  on  it  the  possession  of  the  Holy 
Ghost."1  "The  benefits  of  the  incarnation  are  made  over 
to  the  individual  by  the  dispensation  of  the  grace  of  God. 
The  covenanted  sphere  of  grace  is  the  Church,  the  cove- 
nanted channels  are  the  sacraments.  Within  that  sphere, 
preeminently  though  not  exclusively  through  those  chan- 
nels, the  grace  of  God  is  poured  into  the  soul,  and  man 
is  brought  into  union,  and  kept  in  union,  with  him 
through  the  life-giving  humanity  of  the  Lord  incarnate."2 

Throughout  the  Anglo-Catholic  movement  great  stress 
has  been  laid  upon  baptism  as  the  appointed  means  of 
regeneration.  At  an  early  point  in  that  movement  Pusey 
took  pains  to  glorify  the  efficacy  of  this  rite  in  as  rhetor- 
ical a  sentence  as  he  ever  penned.  "Baptismal  regenera- 
tion," he  declared,  "as  connected  with  the  incarnation  of 
our  blessed  Lord,  gives  a  depth  to  our  Christian  existence, 
an  actualness  to  our  union  with  Christ,  a  reality  to  our 
sonship  to  God,  an  interest  in  the  presence  of  our  Lord's 
glorified  body  at  God's  right  hand,  a  joyousness  amid 
the  subduing  of  the  flesh,  an  overwhelmingness  conferred 
on  human  nature,  a  solemnity  to  the  communion  of  saints, 
who  are  the  fullness  of  Him  who  filleth  all  in  all,  a  sub- 
stantiality to  the  indwelling  of  Christ,  that  to  those  who 
retain  this  truth  the  school  which  abandoned  it  must 
needs  appear  to  have  sold  its  birthright."3  An  estimate 
scarcely  short  of  that  contained  in  this  strained  and  ful- 
some outburst  crops  out  in  the  assertion  that  "there  are 
but  two  periods  of  absolute  cleansing,  baptism  and  the 


1  Darwell  Stone,  Outlines  of  Christian  Dogma,  1900,  pp.  112,  149,  226. 
1  H.  V.  S.  Eck,  The  Incarnation,  1901,  p.  250.  » Tract  67,  p.  16. 


SACRAMENTAL    TEACHING  361 

day  of  judgment."1  It  is  quite  suggestive,  too,  of 
Pusey's  way  of  thinking  that  he  should  have  approved 
of  conditional  baptism  for  those  who  may  have  been 
baptized  by  persons  destitute  of  the  proper  ministerial 
character.2 

A  significant  item  in  Newman's  estimate  of  baptism  is 
given  in  the  dependence  which  he  thought  fit  to  assert  for 
faith  upon  this  rite.  "Faith,"  he  said,  "as  gaining  its 
virtue  from  baptism,  is  one  thing  before  that  sacred 
ordinance,  another  after.  Baptism  raises  it  from  a  con- 
dition into  the  instrument  of  justification — from  a  mere 
forerunner  into  its  accredited  representative."3  No 
words  could  more  clearly  assert  the  primacy  of  baptism 
over  faith  as  a  condition  of  justification. 

An  equally  high  level  of  sacramental  theory  appears 
in  recent  references  to  the  virtue  of  baptism.  Few  of 
these  are  more  strikingly  significant  than  that  in  which 
the  writer  shows  that  the  parable  of  the  vine  and  the 
branches  suggests  to  his  mind,  not  immediate  spiritual 
communion  with  Christ,  but  connection  with  him  through 
the  medium  of  a  physical  transaction.  "It  is  probable," 
he  says,  "that  the  relation  described  when  it  is  said  that 
Christ  is  'the  vine'  and  Christians  are  the  branches,  is 
the  union  which  Holy  Scripture  connects  with  baptism. 
In  that  sacrament  the  stream  of  habitual  grace  is  poured 
into  the  soul,  as  the  life  of  the  vine  flows  through  its 
branches."4  How  the  author  of  this  interpretation  con- 
strued the  emphasis  placed  in  the  parable  upon  the  de- 
mand that  the  disciple  should  constantly  abide  in  Christ 
and  have  Christ's  words  abiding  in  him  is  not  exactly  ap- 

*  Hall,  Confirmation,  p.  92. 


1  Letter  to  the  Bishop  of  Oxford,  p.  62.  •  Hal 

*  Cited  by  M'llvaine,  Oxford  Divinity,  p.  185. 
4  Stone,  The  Holy  Communion,  p.  26. 


362  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

parent.  It  takes  a  very  peculiar  Anglo-Catholic  imagina- 
tion to  interpolate  here  a  reference  to  a  ceremonial  wash- 
ing in  place  of  the  bond  of  faith,  love,  and  loyalty.  In 
more  dogmatic  form  the  writer  just  cited  exalts  the  rite 
of  baptism  by  ascribing  to  it  the  following  benefits:  "i. 
It  unites  the  person  who  is  baptized  to  the  sacred  man- 
hood of  Christ,  and  makes  him  a  member  of  Christ's 
body.  2.  It  removes  the  guilt  of  original  sin,  and  of  all 
previously  committed  actual  sin,  and  also  the  eternal  pen- 
alties due  to  sin.  3.  It  confers  on  the  soul  the  gift  of 
God  the  Holy  Ghost.  4.  It  makes  the  baptized  person 
to  be  a  son  of  God.  5.  It  gives  the  capacity  for  receiving 
the  other  sacraments.  6.  It  imprints  on  the  soul  what  is 
called  character,  which  cannot  be  effaced."1 

Emphasis  on  the  efficacy  of  baptism  logically  runs  very 
close  to  the  assumption  of  its  necessity  for  salvation. 
Anglo-Catholics  evince  their  sense  of  the  logical  demand 
by  their  hesitation  to  put  forth  any  open  and  confident 
expressions  of  hope  for  the  unbaptized.  In  a  representa- 
tive monograph  on  baptism  the  writer  contends  that  "in 
the  New  Testament  no  other  means  of  becoming  a 
Christian  is  anywhere  mentioned  or  implied,"2  and  satis- 
fies himself  with  simply  suggesting  that  the  divine  ad- 
ministration may  perhaps  in  some  cases  resort  to  an  extra 
expedient.  Thus  infants  who  die  unbaptized  are  left 
in  the  shadow  of  an  uncertain  fate.  The  dogmatic  hardi- 
hood, which  is  ready  to  go  on  to  the  assertion  of  their 
certain  exclusion  from  salvation,  we  judge  to  be  quite 
exceptional  among  the  advocates  of  the  Anglo-Catholic 
system.  It  is  in  evidence,  however,  that  even  this  extreme 

1  Outlines  of  Christian  Dogma,  p.  158. 

•Stone,  Holy  Baptism,  pp.  110-116;  see  also  his  Outlines  of  Christian 
Dogma,  pp.  161,  162.    • 


SACRAMENTAL    TEACHING  363 

has  been  reached.  The  Roman  Catholic  .theory,  in  all  the 
length  and  breadth  of  its  affront  to  the  wisdom  and 
benevolence  of  God,  comes  to  expression  in  the  following 
statements:  "Baptism  is  absolutely  necessary  to  salva- 
tion, for  a  person  can  have  no  life  who  has  not  been  born. 
This  is  called  necessitous  medii,  since  baptism  is  the  means 
by  which  the  supernatural  life  is  given  to  the  soul  and  the 
individual  is  incorporated  into  Christ.  .  .  .  Are  all  un- 
baptized  persons  lost  ?  If  we  mean  by  lost  that  they  can 
never  see  God  in  heaven,  we  must  answer,  yes.  If  we 
mean  by  lost  that  they  are  in  the  torments  of  hell,  no; 
unless  they  have  sinned  against  the  light  of  nature."1 
In  other  words,  unbaptized  infants  are  certainly  shut  out 
of  heaven.  They  are  lost,  but  not  in  the  worst  sense  of 
the  term. 

In  relation  to  the  eucharist  it  may  not  have  been  char- 
acteristic of  all  who  have  been  associated  with  the  Anglo- 
Catholic  movement  to  assert  an  objective  corporeal  pres- 
ence of  Christ  as  opposed  to  a  presence  simply  spiritual.2 
But  the  predilection  for  asserting  the  former  type  of 
presence  has  been  decidedly  prominent.  Pusey's  teaching 
unequivocally  favored  that  type.3  He  was  not  satisfied 
with  Calvin's  theory  of  a  virtual  or  efficacious  presence. 
While  he  rejected  transubstantiation,  and  argued  against 
it  at  length,  he  claimed  that  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ 
are  to  be  accounted  objectively  present  under  the  forms 
of  the  consecrated  elements,  so  as  to  be  received  by  the 
wicked.  Others  in  the  numerous  school  of  the  Objectiv- 


1  Mortimer,  Catholic  Faith  and  Practice,  I.  127,  134. 
*  For  a  moderate  and  guarded  view  see  Charles  Gore,  The  Body  of  Christ. 
»  Letter  to  the  Bishop  of  Oxford;  also  The  Real  Presence  of  the  Body 
and  Blood  of  Our  Lord, 


364  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

ists  were  free  to  describe  the  eucharistic  presence  in  terms 
quite  as  realistic  as  suited  the  taste  of  Pusey.  At  a  meet- 
ing in  1871  of  the  Confraternity  of  the  Blessed  Sacra- 
ment, a  society  established  in  1862,  one  who  gave  the 
sermon  made  this  declaration :  "That  the  holy  eucharist 
is  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ  under  the  forms  of  bread 
and  wine,  that  therein  is  Christ  himself,  his  body,  soul, 
and  divinity,  as  truly  as  at  Bethlehem,  or  Nazareth,  or 
Calvary,  or  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  we  take  as  certain."1 
A  paper  read  before  the  Confraternity  the  same  year  de- 
fined eucharistic  terms  as  follows:  "When  we  say  that 
the  presence  of  Christ  is  objective  we  understand  that  it  is 
there  without  communion  as  with  communion,  abiding  un- 
der the  outward  and  visible  form  in  the  consecrated  ele- 
ments, so  long  as  the  elements  are  unconsumed."2  Even  a 
plea  for  naturalizing  the  term  "transubstantiation"  was 
made  at  a  gathering  of  the  Confraternity  in  1889.  "Those 
teachers,"  said  the  advocate  of  the  Roman  formula,  "who 
profess  to  accept  a  real  objective  presence,  while  repu- 
diating transubstantiation,  are  placed  in  a  hopeless  dilem- 
ma, as  was  plainly  seen  by  Zuinglius,  when  he  maintained 
that  there  was  no  alternative  between  transubstantiation 
and  the  figurative  view  which  he  himself  upheld.  .  .  . 
To  avoid  misunderstanding,  whilst  I  hold  that  the  time 
has  come  when  we  must  ourselves  recognize  the  identity 
of  our  own  teaching  with  that  which  is  expressed  in  the 
Tridentine  canons  by  transubstantiation,  and  with  the 
authorized  formularies  of  the  Eastern  Church,  it  is  only 
gradually,  as  they  are  able  to  learn,  that  we  should  expect 
that  we  should  bring  this  conviction  home  to  the  minds 


1  A.  H.  Ward,  cited  by  Walsh,  Secret  History  of  the  Oxford  Movement, 
popular  edit.,  p.  153.  »  Walsh,  p.  156. 


SACRAMENTAL    TEACHING  365 

of  our  weaker  brethren  whom  we  are  striving  to  bring 
over."1  How  rapidly  the  weaker  brethren  have  advanced 
to  a  state  of  receptivity  for  the  strong  meat  of  transub- 
stantiation  has  not  been  made  very  clearly  manifest.  The 
tenor  of  recent  statements,  however,  leads  us  to  conclude 
that  most  Anglo-Catholics  are  still  disinclined  to  make  a 
closer  approximation  to  the  dogmatic  formula  of  Rome 
than  is  contained  in  the  declaration  of  a  real  objective 
presence.  A  representative  furnishes  us  with  this  state- 
ment: "There  is  agreement  among  Eastern  Christians, 
Roman  Catholics,  and  the  successors  of  the  Tractarians 
in  the  Church  of  England  as  to  that  central  part  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  eucharist,  the  expression  of  which  by  the 
English  Church  Union  in  1900  may  be  cited  as  a  con- 
venient illustration.  It  was  there  declared  'that  in  the 
sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  the  bread  and  wine, 
through  the  operation  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  become,  in 
and  by  consecration,  according  to  our  Lord's  institution, 
verily  and  indeed  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ,  and  that 
Christ  our  Lord,  present  in  the  same  most  holy  sacrament 
of  the  altar  under  the  form  of  bread  and  wine,  is  to  be 
worshiped  and  adored.'  Any  such  statement  is  not  ac- 
ceptable to,  and  is  sometimes  strongly  resisted  by,  those 
members  of  the  Church  of  England  who  avail  themselves 
of  the  freedom  of  the  English  formularies  by  limiting 
their  positive  assertions  to  a  reception  of  Christ  by  the 
faithful  communicant,  and  by  those  who  in  disregard  of 
the  formularies  hold  the  Zwinglian  view."2 

The  development  of  the  doctrine  of  the  real  objective 
presence  was  naturally  accompanied  by  a  corresponding 


1  Urquhart,  cited  by  Walsh,  p.  157. 

8  Stone,  The  Holy  Communion,  pp.  186,  187. 


366  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

development  of  the  conception  of  the  eucharist  as  a  sacri- 
fice. Pusey  described  it  as  a  "commemorative  impetra- 
tory  sacrifice."  The  author  of  a  monograph  on  the 
subject,  who  followed  the  general  line  of  Pusey's  inter- 
pretation, has  thus  expressed  the  importance  of  the  ele- 
ment of  sacrifice  in  the  rite  as  compared  with  that  of 
commemoration:  "Doubtless  it  is  a  memorial  to  us  also 
of  God's  infinite  mercy  toward  us,  his  sinful  creatures,  as 
manifested  in  the  incarnation  and  self-sacrificing  life  and 
death  of  Christ,  and  therefore  well-calculated  to  fill  our 
hearts  with  love  and  gratitude;  but  the  great  and  grand 
idea  is  that  it  is  a  memorial  sacrifice  offered  to  God."1 
A  writer  who  finds  the  term  "commemorative"  or  "me- 
morial" inadequate,  and  who  advances  squarely  to  Roman 
Catholic  phraseology,  makes  this  statement:  "On  the 
cross  our  Lord  offered  visibly  to  God  his  body  and  his 
precious  blood.  In  the  eucharist  he  offers  under  the 
forms  of  bread  and  wine  that  body  which  is  no  longer 
visible  to  our  earthly  eyes.  .  .  .  It  is  a  propitiatory 
sacrifice  for  the  quick  and  dead,  that  is,  it  is  offered  in 
expiation  and  satisfaction  for  the  sins  of  those  in  God's 
Church  on  earth  and  in  purgatory."2  In  some  of  the 
secret  associations  within  the  Anglican  Establishment 
this  point  of  view  has  been  countenanced  both  in  theory 
and  practice.  At  a  meeting  of  the  Confraternity  of  the 
Blessed  Sacrament  in  1880  the  author  of  a  paper  spoke 
of  the  eucharist  as  perpetuating  and  applying  the  sacrifice 
on  the  cross.  "Are  we  troubled,"  he  added,  "about  those 
who  in  the  shadow  of  death  are  awaiting  the  judgment? 
The  blood  of  the  sacrifice  reaches  down  to  the  prisoners 


1  Prynne,  The  Truth  and  Reality  of  the  Eucharistic  Sacrifice,  1904,  p  .13. 
*  Mortimer,  Catholic  Faith  and  Practice,  I.  341,  246. 


SACRAMENTAL    TEACHING  367 

of  hope,  and  the  dead,  as  they  are  made  to  possess  their 
old  sins  in  the  darkness  of  the  grave,  thank  us  that  we 
offer  for  them  the  sacrifice  which  restores  to  light  and 
immortality."1  This  efficacy  of  the  eucharistic  sacrifice 
in  affording  relief  to  the  dead,  is  a  point  of  special  em- 
phasis in  the  Guild  of  All  Souls,  which  was  established  in 
1873.  Doubtless,  to  take  societies  of  this  cast  as  fully 
representative  of  the  Anglo-Catholic  party  would  not  be 
a  judicial  procedure ;  but  still  they  bear  witness  to  tenden- 
cies that  work  energetically  within  that  party.  It  is  safe 
to  infer  that  its  members  do  not  care  to  meditate  fre- 
quently upon  this  declaration  in  the  Thirty-nine  Articles : 
"The  sacrifices  of  masses,  in  the  which  it  was  commonly 
said  that  the  priest  did  offer  Christ  for  the  quick  and  the 
dead,  to  have  remission  of  pain  or  guilt,  were  blasphe- 
mous fables  and  dangerous  deceits."2 

Confession  and  absolution  are  much  too  important 
features  in  theoretical  and  practical  Romanism  to  be 
neglected  by  a  Romanizing  faction.  It  is  no  cause  for 
surprise,  therefore,  that  Anglo-Catholics  from  the  start 
have  been  disposed  to  set  a  high  value  on  these  means  of 
religious  direction  and  priestly  control.  Before  the  Trac- 
tarian  movement  was  launched  Froude  began  to  agitate 
the  subject  in  his  own  mind,  though  apparently  without 
reaching  determinate  results.3  In  the  original  Oxford 
group  Pusey  was  one  of  the  most  pronounced  advocates 
of  confession  and  absolution.  While  he  did  not  go  the 
full  length  of  the  Roman  doctrine  of  the  necessity  of  con- 
fession or  of  the  judicial  character  of  priestly  absolution, 
he  did  consider  it  highly  appropriate  that  the  penitent 

1  Walsh,  p.  149.         2  Article xxxi.        *  Remains,  vol.  I,  parti,  pp.  98,  in. 


368  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

should  open  his  sins  to  an  ordained  confessor,  and 
credited  to  the  latter  a  real,  though  ministerial  or  instru- 
mental, function  in  the  forgiveness  of  sins.1  The  same 
point  of  view  was  represented  in  a  declaration  signed 
by  twenty-six  Puseyites  in  1873.  Meanwhile  the  party 
was  far  from  contenting  itself  with  the  advocacy  of 
theoretical  points.  The  confessional  was  put  into  opera- 
tion, though  with  a  very  considerable  degree  of  secrecy 
in  the  first  stages.  Pusey  was  so  active  in  this  line  that 
in  1850  he  drew  from  Bishop  Samuel  Wilberforce  this 
trenchant  comment:  "You  seem  to  me  to  be  habitually 
assuming  and  doing  the  work  of  a  Roman  Catholic  con- 
fessor, and  not  that  of  an  English  clergyman.  Now,  I 
so  firmly  believe  that  of  all  the  curses  of  Popery  this  is 
the  crowning  curse,  that  I  cannot  allow  voluntarily  within 
my  charge  the  ministry  that  is  infected  by  it."2  The 
rebuke  was  sharp;  but  it  was  characteristic  of  the  Trac- 
tarians  to  exalt  the  bishops  in  theory  and  to  override 
their  will  in  practice,  and  Pusey  probably  was  not  enough 
of  an  exception  to  feel  at  all  hampered  by  the  episcopal 
censure.  He  kept  on  his  way,  and  among  other  tokens 
of  his  zeal  for  the  cause  of  the  confessional  in  the  Church 
of  England  he  sent  out  for  the  use  of  confessors  a  modi- 
fied edition  of  Gaume's  Manual.3 

Before  Pusey  had  delivered  himself  of  his  manual  a 
translated  and  adapted  edition  of  Gaume's  book  had  been 
secretly  distributed  among  clergymen  favorable  to  the 
confessional,  under  the  title  of  The  Priest  in  Absolution. 
The  book  was  exposed  in  Parliament  in  1877,  extracts 
being  read  to  show  the  prurient  and  indecent  character 

1  Liddon,  Life  of  Pusey,  I.  401 ;  III.  61. 

*  H.  W.  Clarke,  The  Confessional  in  the  Church  of  England,  1898,  p.  14. 

1  Liddon,  Life  of  Pusey,  IV.  303. 


SACRAMENTAL    TEACHING  369 

of  some  of  its  contents.  Remarking  on  the  quality  of 
the  extracts,  Archbishop  Tait  said  before  the  House  of 
Lords :  "No  modest  person  could  read  the  book  without 
regret.  It  is  a  disgrace  to  the  community  that  such  a 
book  should  be  circulated  under  the  authority  of  clergy- 
men of  the  Church  of  England.  ...  I  cannot  imagine 
that  any  right-minded  man  could  wish  to  have  such  ques- 
tions addressed  to  any  member  of  his  family;  and  if  he 
had  reason  to  suppose  that  any  member  of  his  family  had 
been  exposed  to  such  an  examination,  I  am  sure  that  it 
would  be  the  duty  of  any  father  of  a  family  to  remon- 
strate with  the  clergyman  who  had  put  the  questions,  and 
warn  him  never  to  approach  his  house  again."1 

The  Priest  in  Absolution  was  circulated  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Society  of  the  Holy  Cross,  which  was 
founded  in  1855.  It  was  largely  due  to  the  authorities 
of  this  society  that  a  petition,  signed  by  four  hundred 
and  eighty-three  of  the  clergy,  was  prepared  and  pre- 
sented to  Convocation  in  1873,  making  request  that  this 
body  would  "consider  the  advisability  of  providing  for 
the  education,  selection,  and  licensing  of  duly  qualified 
confessors."2  Convocation  was  not  minded  to  grant  the 
petition,  and  in  referring  to  it  shortly  afterward  the 
archbishops  said:  "We  believe  that  through  the  system 
of  the  confessional  great  evil  has  been  wrought  in  the 
Church  of  Rome,  and  that  our  Reformers  acted  wisely 
in  allowing  it  no  place  in  our  reformed  Church,  and  we 
take  this  opportunity  of  expressing  our  entire  disap- 
proval of  any  such  innovation,  and  our  firm  determina- 
tion to  do  all  in  our  power  to  discourage  it."3  A  resolu- 


1  Walsh,  pp.  69,  70.  *  Ibid.,  pp.  49,  50. 

*  Liddon,  Life  of  Pui 


Pusey,  IV.  263. 


370  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

tion  of  Convocation  in  1877  indicated  that  a  majority 
of  that  body  shared  the  judgment  of  the  archbishops. 
The  resolution  reprobated  the  idea  that  any  "minister  of 
the  Church  is  authorized  to  require  from  those  who  may 
resort  to  him  to  open  their  grief,  a  particular  and  detailed 
enumeration  of  all  their  sins,  or  to  require  private  con- 
fession previous  to  the  holy  communion,  to  enjoin  or 
even  to  encourage  the  practice  of  habitual  confession  to  a 
priest."1 

What  effect  have  the  reproofs  from  episcopal  and  other 
sources  had  upon  the  party  laboring  for  the  subjugation 
of  the  English  Church  to  the  confessional?  Apparently 
none.  Books  have  been  put  in  circulation  for  the  in- 
struction of  children  in  which  confession  of  sins  to  a 
priest  is  laid  down  as  a  prime  duty  and  matter  of  neces- 
sity.2 Representative  writers  in  the  ranks  of  Anglo-Cath- 
olics make  bold  to  speak  of  sacramental  confession,  not 
as  a  thing  justified  by  some  exceptional  exigency,  but  as 
an  expedient  in  the  cure  of  souls  to  which  full  scope 
should  be  given.  Surely  it  is  no  restricted  province  that 
is  claimed  in  the  following  declaration :  "The  laity  have 
a  right  to  know,  as  a  practical  remedy  for  sin,  the  exist- 
ence in  the  Church  of  private  confession,  absolution,  and 
direction.  It  is  easy  to  raise  objections  from  national 
character  and  the  past  abuses  of  the  confessional,  but  the 
plain  fact  remains  that  God  has  provided  the  sacrament 
of  penance,  and  those  who  disparage  or  deliberately 
ignore  it  are  running  the  risk  of  blood-guiltiness."3  An 
American  representative  of  Anglo-Catholic  principles  is 
not  less  emphatic  in  his  estimate  of  the  value  and  neces- 

1  Liddon,  Life  of  Pusey,  IV.  311. 

9  Clarke,  The  Confessional  in  the  Church  of  England. 

»  Whitham,  Holy  Orders,  p.  190. 


SACRAMENTAL    TEACHING  371 

sity  of  the  confessional.  He  has  improved  on  Pusey 
sufficiently  to  recognize  in  the  priestly  absolution  a 
judicial  sentence.  In  other  respects  also  he  approaches 
the  Roman  standard,  including  the  verdict  that  attrition 
together  with  the  sacrament  may  suffice.  He  is  con- 
siderate enough,  however,  to  suggest  a  possibility  of 
salvation  apart  from  sacramental  absolution.  "We 
know,"  he  says,  "of  no  revealed  way  by  which  the  mortal 
sin  which  we  have  committted  since  baptism  can  be 
remitted,  save  by  absolution.  God,  however,  is  not  tied 
down  to  means,  and  for  those  who  sincerely  repent,  and 
through  no  fault  of  their  own  (from  ignorance  or  preju- 
dice) are  unable  to  seek  absolution,  we  may  hope  and 
believe  that  their  penitence  is  accepted  with  God."1 
Another  American,  if  he  has  not  formally  asserted  a 
universal  obligation  to  make  use  of  the  confessional,  has 
used  arguments  which  imply  the  existence  of  such  an 
obligation.  Since  the  incarnation,  he  maintains,  it  is  not 
sufficient  for  men  to  confess  simply  to  the  invisible  God. 
"It  is  against  the  man,  Christ  Jesus,  they  have  sinned, 
and  they  must  go  to  those  who  represent  him.  Thus  they 
fulfill  the  promptings  of  honor  and  love."2  The  logic  of 
this  passage  is  not  by  any  means  impressive,  since,  after 
Christ  no  less  than  before,  it  is  the  dictate  of  common 
sense  that  the  one  who  needs  forgiveness  should  go  to 
him  who  in  his  omniscience  knows  the  sin,  and  whose 
judgment  is  so  instantaneously  responsive  to  the  condi- 
tions, and  so  absolutely  authoritative  and  final,  that  no 
slow-going  earthly  official  can  possibly  anticipate  it  or 
have  partnership  in  it  to  the  least  extent.  But  aside  from 


1  Mortimer,  Catholic  Faith  and  Practice,  I.  173. 

*  Graf  ton,  Pusey  and  the  Church  Revival,  pp.  65,  66. 


372  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

its  deserts  in  logic  the  passage  is  of  interest  as  a  sign  of 
the  Anglo-Catholic  goal  on  this  theme.  The  goal  is 
plainly  the  reimposition  upon  the  whole  body  of  the  faith- 
ful of  the  Roman  prescription  of  auricular  confession. 

Practice  has  added  its  comment  to  expressions  of 
theory  on  this  theme.  Though  there  is  not  a  scrap  in 
either  the  English  or  the  American  Prayer  Book  which 
warrants  the  use  of  any  pressure  to  induce  private  con- 
fession, pressure  has  been  brought  to  bear.  So  at  least  we 
are  assured  by  reputable  witnesses  for  the  English  do- 
main. Instances  have  occurred  in  which  the  sacrament 
has  been  refused  to  the  dying  for  lack  of  compliance  with 
the  sacerdotal  demand  for  confession.1  In  various  ways 
effort  has  sedulously  been  put  forth  to  transmute  option 
into  obligation.  Bishop  C.  J.  Ellicott,  speaking  in  1878, 
had  occasion  to  remark :  "While  it  has  been  admitted 
(for  it  could  not  be  denied)  that  confession  is  not  com- 
pulsory in  the  system  of  the  Church,  in  the  sense  in  which 
it  is  compulsory  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  confession  has 
nevertheless  been  pressed  both  in  public  and  private  ex- 
hortations constantly  and  cogently.  And  not  confession 
merely,  in  the  general  sense  in  which  it  seems  mainly 
alluded  to  in  the  exhortation  in  the  communion  service, 
but  sacramental  confession — confession  to  be  followed  by 
and  designed  to  procure  absolution.  Without  this 
absolution  it  has  been  implied — aye,  and  I  fear  far  more 
than  implied — that  there  is  no  security  for  the  forgive- 
ness of  post-baptismal  sin."2  A  concordant  testimony 
was  given  in  the  Times  twenty  years  later,  as  follows : 
"Habitual  confession  to  a  priest  is  not  compulsory.  But 


1  Clarke,  The  Confessional  in  the  Church  of  England,  pp.  10,  n. 
*  Some  Present  Dangers  of  the  Church  of  England,  pp.  44,  45. 


ATTITUDE   TOWARD   PROTESTANTISM  373 

between  compulsion  and  strong  recommendation  the  line 
is  often  finely  drawn;  and  where  habitual  confession  is 
held  up  as  a  counsel  of  perfection  by  the  spiritual  guides 
of  any  congregation  or  other  body  of  persons,  their  zeal 
and  earnestness  and  their  personal  will  go  far  toward 
presenting  it  as  a  duty.  That  this  is  what  is  going  on  at 
this  moment  in  the  more  advanced  regions  of  Anglican- 
ism there  is  unfortunately  little  room  to  doubt ;  and  this, 
we  believe,  is  what  more  than  anything  else  alarms  the 
Protestant  laity  of  England.  They  know  by  the  same 
verdict  of  history  and  experience  that,  whatever  may  be 
the  spiritual  benefit  of  confession  in  special  and  isolated 
cases,  its  inculcation  as  a  universal  spiritual  duty  has 
always  been  attended  with  the  gravest  consequences,  both 
to  the  individual  conscience  and  to  family  life."1 

V. — ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PROTESTANTISM  AND 
ROMANISM  RESPECTIVELY 

It  has  been  noticed  that  the  Tractarians  in  carrying 
out  their  High-Church  theories  speedily  made  the  dis- 
covery that  they  could  not  build  with  any  security  or 
comfort  on  the  fathers  of  the  Anglican  Establishment, 
on  the  men  who  wrought  in  the  reigns  of  Edward  VI 
and  Elizabeth.  The  Non jurors  were  found  to  be  more 
congenial  forerunners,  and  with  that  party  they  turned  a 
reverential  glance  toward  Christian  antiquity,  and 
located  in  the  consensus  of  the  early  fathers  the  obliga- 
tory standard.  Somewhat  of  a  function  was  still  con- 
ceded by  the  Tractarians  to  the  Reformation.  It  was 


1  Times,  Aug.  23,  1898,  cited  by  Clarke,  The  Confessional  in  the  Church 
of  England,  p.  12. 


374  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

credited  by  them  with  having  accomplished  a  necessary 
work  in  cutting  off  certain  abuses  and  corruptions  which 
had  been  brought  in  since  the  patristic  era.  But  with 
this  ground  of  approval  they  were  moved  to  conjoin 
grounds  of  radical  disapproval.  It  seemed  to  them  that 
the  Reformers  had  cast  aside  very  much  that  ought  to 
have  been  conserved,  and  that  large  deference  to  them 
was  incompatible  with  loyalty  to  the  Anglo-Catholic 
ideal  which  they  conceived  to  be  the  true  pattern  for  the 
Church  of  England.  They  began,  in  fact,  to  take  their 
historical  association  with  the  Protestant  Reformation 
as  rather  a  burden  than  a  benediction.  Enamored  with 
the  notion  of  connection  with  an  ancient  Catholic  Church, 
they  wished  to  have  it  understood  that  the  English 
Church  belonged  to  an  entirely  different  genus  from  that 
of  the  Protestant  communions. 

Temperament  and  reach  of  historical  insight  naturally 
have  had  much  to  do  in  determining  the  degree  of  viru- 
lence which  Anglo-Catholics  have  put  into  their  criticisms 
and  denunciations  of  Protestantism  and  the  Reformation. 
The  more  impetuous  the  disposition,  and  the  narrower 
the  conception  of  the  tremendous  exigencies  which  lay 
back  of  the  revolution  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  more 
full  and  intense  have  been  the  expressions  of  hatred  and 
condemnation.  Men  of  the  stamp  of  Newman  and  Pusey 
have  exercised  a  fair  degree  of  restraint  in  their  animad- 
versions. On  the  other  hand,  throughout  the  Anglo- 
Catholic  movement  there  have  been  men  who  have  been 
prodigal  of  bitter  comments  on  the  Reformation  and  on 
its  transmitted  results.  Near  the  startingpoint  of  Trac- 
tarianism  Froude  supplied  a  model  for  this  company.  In 
1834  he  wrote:  "As  to  the  Reformers,  I  think  worse  and 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD   PROTESTANTISM  375 

worse  of  them."1  Again,  near  the  end  of  the  same  year 
he  declared:  "Really  I  hate  the  Reformation  and  the 
Reformers  more  and  more,  and  have  almost  made  up 
my  mind  that  the  rationalist  spirit  which  they  set  afloat 
is  the  false  prophet  of  the  Revelation."2  A  little  later 
he  asked  of  his  correspondent :  "Why  do  you  praise  Rid- 
ley? Do  you  know  sufficient  good  about  him  to  coun- 
terbalance the  fact  that  he  was  the  associate  of  Cranmer, 
Peter  Martyr,  and  Bucer?  ...  As  for  me,  I  never 
mean,  if  I  can  help  it,  to  use  any  phrases,  even,  which  can 
connect  me  with  such  a  set.  .  .  .  Nor  shall  I  ever 
abuse  the  Roman  Catholics  a.?  a  Church  for  anything 
except  excommunicating  us."3  It  was  due  to  Froude 
also  that  Tractarian  sentiment  was  given  expression  in 
the  much-quoted  formula,  "The  Reformation  was  a  limb 
badly  set — it  must  be  broken  again  in  order  to  be 
righted."4  Froude  had  a  genuine  successor,  as  respects 
indisposition  to  put  a  bridle  upon  his  tongue,  in  the  per- 
son of  W.  G.  Ward.  The  attitude  of  the  latter  toward 
the  Reformation  was  made  apparent  in  his  book  on  The 
Ideal  of  a  Christian  Church  (1844).  It  crops  out  in  the 
contrast  which  he  takes  pains  to  institute  between  the 
Reformers  and  the  founder  of  the  Jesuits.  "About  the 
time,"  he  says,  "when  the  Church  of  Christ  was  harassed 
and  outraged  and  insulted  by  the  foreign  Reformers, 
within  the  Church  appeared  the  spiritual  exercises  of  Saint 
Ignatius."5  But  the  most  envenomed  expressions  of  con- 
tempt for  the  Reformation  in  Ward's  book  were  those 
in  which  he  excoriated  the  Church  of  England  as  a 
wretched  and  misshapen  offspring  of  the  Reformation. 


i  Remains,  vol.  I,  part  i,  p.  380.      *  Ibid.,  p.  389.       » Ibid.,  pp.  393-395. 
*  Ibid.,  p.    433.  *  Page   80. 


376  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

It  would  be  difficult  certainly  to  outdo  the  following 
specimen  of  the  art  of  depreciation :  "Believing,  as  I 
most  firmly  do,  that  ever  since  the  schism  of  the  sixteenth 
century  the  English  Church  has  been  swayed  by  a  spirit 
of  arrogance,  self-contentment,  and  self-complacency,  re- 
sembling rather  an  absolute  infatuation  than  the  imbe- 
cility of  ordinary  pride,  which  has  stifled  her  energies, 
crippled  her  resources,  frustrated  all  the  efforts  of  her 
most  faithful  children  to  raise  her  from  her  existing 
degradation,  I  for  one,  however  humble  my  position, 
will  not  be  responsible  for  uttering  one  word,  or  implying 
one  opinion,  which  shall  tend  to  foster  this  outrageous 
delusion."1  That  a  man  holding  official  position  in  the 
Anglican  Establishment  could  have  written  in  this  strain 
has  the  appearance  of  a  psychological  wonder.  The  psy- 
chological marvel,  however,  is  explained,  though  at  the 
expense  of  a  moral  mystery.  Ward  at  this  time  had  re- 
nounced all  faith  in  the  Church  of  England.  "He  had 
felt  bound  to  retain  his  external  communion  with  her 
members,  because  he  believed  that  he  was  bringing  many 
of  them  toward  Rome."2 

Later  Anglo-Catholics,  similar  in  temper  to  those  who 
have  just  been  cited,  have  favored  us  with  similar  tokens 
of  appreciation  of  Protestantism.  One  of  them  tells  us, 
"The  worst  form  of  Catholicism  is  a  better  religion  than 
the  best  form  of  Protestantism."3  He  furthermore  in- 
forms us  that  the  Lutheran  doctrine  of  justification  is 
"the  most  anti-missionary  and  anti-Christian  of  dog- 
mas."4 Another  witness  expends  his  wrath  upon  the 
same  item  in  the  Protestant  system,  and  paints  its  doleful 

1  Page  55. 

*  Wilfrid  Ward,  W.  G.  Ward  and  the  Oxford  Movement,  p.  356. 

*  R.  F.  Littledale,  in  the  Church  and  the  World,  III.  63.        *  Ibid.,  A.  49. 


ATTITUDE   TOWARD    PROTESTANTISM  377 

effects  in  these  emphatic  terms :  "Of  the  terrible  ravages 
effected  by  this  doctrine  among  Dissenters,  who  proclaim 
it  without  qualifications,  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  speak 
too  strongly.  It  has  been  a  matter  of  experience  to  find 
among  them  the  most  deplorable  deterioration  of  morals 
combined  with  the  loudest  protestations  of  faith."1  A 
testimony  quite  in  line  with  this  is  furnished  by  a  writer 
who  has  given  the  Anglican  bishops  the  benefit  of  a  thick 
volume  of  instruction  and  admonition.  Speaking  of 
Protestantism,  he  says :  "Not  only  has  immorality  grown 
with  its  growth,  but  infidelity  almost  invariably  follows 
in  its  wake.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  perceive  the  reasons  of 
such  results.  Where  faith  is  corrupted  it  is  impossible 
that  the  morals  can  be  pure."2  Again,  referring  to  the 
sins  of  the  Broad-Church  party,  he  remarks:  "It  is  one 
of  the  bitter  fruits  of  Protestantism — that  miserable 
system  of  negation  which  a  rationalistic  philosophy 
would  substitute  for  the  Catholic  faith,  the  eternal  and 
unchangeable  truth  revealed  to  us  by  God  himself  in  the 
person  of  the  only-begotten  Son."3  Scarcely  more  ami- 
able in  tone  are  the  references  of  an  American  writer  who 
has  thought  fit  to  make  use  of  two  figures  in  characteriz- 
ing Protestantism,  depicting  it  on  the  one  hand  as  the 
tares  sown  among  the  wheat  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and 
on  the  other  hand  as  the  petty  confined  pool  left  in  the 
sand  by  the  receding  waves.4 

As  was  intimated  at  the  beginning  of  this  topic,  we 
have  not  assumed  that  all  Anglo-Catholics  would  care 
to  speak  in  the  style  of  these  extracts.  In  all  reason  it 
must  be  supposed  that  many  of  them  have  gained  the 

1  S.  Baring-Gould,  The  Church  and  the  World,  III.  242. 

2  Lendrum,  The  Principles  of  the  Reformation,  1875,0.  35. 

» Ibid.r  p.  125.  *  Mortimer,  Catholic  Faith  and  Practice,  I.  219,  94. 


378  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

conviction  that  Protestantism  has  been  a  mighty  world- 
power  in  the  modern  era,  and  is  destined  to  be  a  mighty 
factor  in  the  religion  of  the  future,  as  not  being  con- 
temptible even  in  respect  of  the  number  of  its  adherents, 
and  much  less  in  the  resources  of  that  independent  reli- 
gious manhood  which  in  the  long  run  must  be  more  than 
a  match  for  manhood  repressed  and  abridged  by  subjec- 
tion to  priestly  despotism. 

Aversion  from  Protestantism  and  inclination  to  Rome 
are  phrases  of  nearly  identical  meaning  when  applied 
to  the  Anglo-Catholic  movement.  Still,  there  is  room  for 
a  measure  of  distinction.  A  person  dissatisfied  with  the 
results  of  the  Reformation  might  also  be  quite  hostile  to 
various  features  of  Romanism,  and  conclude  that  the 
true  course  lies  in  the  via  media.  Formally  that  was 
precisely  the  standpoint  assumed  by  the  originators  of 
the  Oxford  movement,  and  it  has  not  ceased  to  be  repre- 
sented among  their  successors.  In  fact,  as  was  dem- 
onstrated in  the  experiences  of  too  many  of  the  leaders 
themselves,  the  so-called  via  media  had  a  Romeward  in- 
clination. But  this  was  not  due  to  deliberate  choice,  and 
the  failure  to  take  note  of  it  resulted  from  defective  vision 
as  to  the  logical  dictate  of  the  positions  taken.  So  we 
find  in  the  Tracts  for  the  Times  polemical  matter  against 
Romanism.  A  part  of  this  may  be  attributed  to  the  quite 
mundane  motive  of  fending  off  charges  of  Romanizing 
tendencies.  Still,  it  would  be  an  odious  insinuation  which 
would  find  the  whole  explanation  in  a  motive  of  that  sort. 
The  Tract  writers  may  be  credited  with  having  meant  a 
large  part  of  what  they  said  in  their  criticisms  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  system.  Taken  together  these  criticisms 


ATTITUDE    TOWARD    ROMANISM  379 

constitute  a  rather  serious  impeachment.  Referring  to 
the  transition  effected  at  the  Council  of  Trent,  the  author 
of  Tract  15  says:  "Then  indeed,  it  is  to  be  feared,  the 
whole  Roman  communion  bound  itself  by  a  perpetual 
bond  and  covenant  to  the  cause  of  Antichrist."  In  Tract 
1 8  the  Reformers  are  commended  for  cutting  off  "the 
monstrous  doctrine  of  merit"  taught  by  Rome.  Tract  20 
praises  the  grandeur  of  the  ceremonies  in  use  among 
Roman  Catholics,  but  at  the  same  time  emphasizes  the 
impossibility  of  union  in  these  energetic  terms:  "Their 
communion  is  infected  with  heresy ;  we  are  bound  to  flee 
it  as  a  pestilence.  They  have  established  a  lie  in  the 
place  of  God's  truth;  and  by  their  claim  of  immutability 
in  doctrine  cannot  undo  the  sin  they  have  committed." 
Tract  35  declares  of  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy:  "They 
are  mere  intruders  in  this  country,  have  no  right  to  come 
here,  and  besides  have  so  corrupted  the  truth  of  God's 
word  that  they  are  not  to  be  listened  to  for  a  moment." 
In  Tract  38  the  Tridentine  articles  are  pronounced  un- 
christian, and  a  long  list  of  specifications,  following  in 
the  line  of  Bishop  Hall's  strictures,  is  added  to  show  in 
what  respects  they  sin  against  scriptural  truth.  Among 
these  specifications  are  the  following :  "That  the  doctrine 
of  transubstantiation,  as  not  being  revealed,  but  a  theory 
of  man's  devising,  is  profane  and  impious.  That  the  denial 
of  the  cup  to  the  laity  is  a  bold  and  unwarranted  encroach- 
ment on  their  privileges  as  Christ's  people.  That  the 
sacrifice  of  masses,  as  it  has  been  practiced  in  the  Roman 
Church,  is  without  foundation  in  Scripture  or  antiquity; 
and  therefore  blasphemous  and  dangerous.  That  forced 
confession  is  an  unauthorized  and  dangerous  practice. 
That  the  invocation  of  saints  is  a  dangerous  practice  as 


38o  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

tending  to  give,  often  actually  giving,  to  creatures  the 
honor  and  reliance  due  to  the  Creator  alone.  That  the 
Romish  doctrine  of  tradition  is  unscriptural.  That  the 
claim  of  the  pope  to  be  universal  bishop  is  against  Scrip- 
ture and  antiquity."  A  considerable  number  of  these 
grounds  of  complaint  are  reiterated  in  Tract  71,  where 
we  have  also  mention  of  the  doctrine  of  priestly  intention 
as  necessary  to  the  validity  of  the  sacrament,  and  of  the 
unwarranted  anathemas  in  which  the  Roman  Church  has 
indulged. 

After  the  era  of  the  Tracts  the  polemic  against  Rome, 
though  not  conducted  with  much  vigor  and  persistence, 
still  came  into  evidence  occasionally.  Pusey  greatly 
crippled  his  ability  to  contend  against  the  Roman  system 
by  his  declared  readiness  to  accept  the  whole  mass  of  the 
Tridentine  decisions  relative  to  justification  and  tradi- 
tion1 ;  but  still  he  continued,  as  has  been  observed,  to 
urge  objections  against  various  points  in  Roman  theory 
and  practice.  The  Vatican  Council  greatly  strengthened 
his  feeling  of  opposition,  and  drove  all  thought  of  union 
schemes  out  of  his  mind.  In  1880,  two  years  before  his 
death,  he  wrote  to  a  friend:  "The  majority  of  the 
Vatican  Council  crushed  me.  I  have  not  touched  any 
book  of  Roman  controversy  since.  Pope  Pius  IX  devised 
and  carried  two  new  articles  of  faith;  and  the  absolute 
personal  infallibility  of  the  pope,  to  which  they  sacrificed 
Dollinger,  stands  in  my  way,  contradicting  history.  All 
other  questions  sink  into  nothing  before  this.  Our  creeds 
must  be  reformed  [so  as  to  run]  :  'I  believe  in  the  pope,' 
instead  of  'I  believe  in  the  holy  Catholic  Church/  I  have 
no  heart  left.  I  could  not  the  other  day  read  some  ency- 

1  Eirenicon,  part  i,  p.  19;  part  ii,  pp.  4,  5. 


ATTITUDE    TOWARD    ROMANISM  381 

clical  of  the  present  pope  because  I  did  not  know  whether 
I  was  to  read  it  as  a  third  or  a  thirtieth  general  epistle 
of  Saint  Peter.  My  only  hope  is  that  Antichrist  will 
somehow  drive  the  Church  into  one."1  Thus  gloomily 
the  author  of  the  "Eirenicon"  sketched  the  outlook. 

Others  among  Anglo-Catholics  might  be  mentioned 
who  expended  a  portion  of  their  zeal  in  combating 
Roman  errors.  This  was  conspicuously  the  case  with 
R.  F.  Littledale.  In  spite  of  the  hard  sayings  which  he 
flung  at  Protestantism  he  was  far  from  being  enamored 
of  Romanism,  and  composed  against  it  a  very  trenchant 
polemic.  Some  of  his  descriptions  of  practical  Romanism 
may  serve  as  a  corrective  to  the  uncritical  procedure  of 
his  fellow  Anglo-Catholics  in  lauding  the  papal  Church 
and  charging  all  badness  upon  Protestantism.  Thus  he 
remarks:  "Romanism  is  at  its  worst  where  it  has  had 
entire  liberty  and  long  monopoly.  In  every  such  country 
the  educated  classes  are,  as  a  rule,  alienated  from  the 
Church;  unbelief  is  widespread,  rancorous,  and  increas- 
ing."2 Again  he  writes :  "In  our  own  day,  despite  much 
visible  improvement,  the  moral  standard  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  clergy  is  very  unsatisfactory  in  many  places, 
reaching  its  lowest  point  in  Spanish  and  Portuguese 
America,  but  far  from  what  it  should  be  in  Austria, 
Spain,  Portugal,  Italy,  and  even  France;  while  the  cus- 
tomary usage  of  hushing  up  scandals,  and  merely  trans- 
ferring clerical  offenders  to  other  places,  without  bring- 
ing them  to  trial,  is  so  far  from  producing  belief  in  the 
impeccability  of  the  clergy  that  it  brings  innocent  mem- 
bers under  suspicion,  just  because  immunity  from  official 

1  Liddon,  Life  of  Pusey,  IV.  362. 

2  Plain  Reasons  Against  Joining  the  Church  of  Rome,  tenth  thousand, 
1880,  p.  144. 


382  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

censure  is  no  proof  of  good  character."1  That  the 
Vatican  Council  canceled  all  reasonable  ground  of  deal- 
ing with  Rome  was  no  more  a  matter  of  doubt  to  Little- 
dale  than  to  Pusey.  "The  Vatican  decree,"  he  contended, 
"which  declares  that  the  pope's  decisions  are  'irreform- 
able  even  without  the  consent  of  the  Church,'  has  de- 
stroyed the  mark  of  apostolicity  by  destroying  the  Church 
itself.  For  what  it  means,  put  as  a  piece  of  arithmetic,  is 
this:  Pope-}-Church=Pope — Church,  and  therefore, 
Church=o."2 

So  much  for  the  anti-Roman  phase  of  the  Anglo- 
Catholic  movement.  That  phase  deserves  a  measure  of 
consideration.  Still,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  move- 
ment was  permeated  with  a  Romanizing  tendency.  The 
evidences  reach  along  its  whole  course  and  obtrude  them- 
selves at  this  very  day.  Writing  but  a  short  interval 
after  the  publication  of  the  Tracts  for  the  Times,  William 
Palmer  had  occasion  to  remark :  "Within  the  last  two  or 
three  years  a  new  school  has  made  its  appearance.  The 
Church  unhappily  has  had  reason  to  feel  the  existence  of 
a  spirit  of  dissatisfaction  with  her  principles,  of  enmity 
to  her  Reformers,  of  recklessness  for  her  interests.  We 
have  seen  in  the  same  quarter  a  spirit  of  almost  servil- 
ity and  adulation  to  Rome.  ...  So  far  has  this  sys- 
tem of  adulation  proceeded,  that  translations  from  Rom- 
ish rituals  and  devotions  have  been  published  in  which 
the  very  form  of  printing  and  every  other  external  pecu- 
liarity have  evinced  an  earnest  desire  for  uniformity  with 
Rome.  Romish  catechisms  have  been  introduced,  and 
formed  the  models  for  similar  compositions.  In  con- 


1  Page  191.     On  the  method  of  dealing  with  clerical  offenders  compare 
Crowley,  The  Parochial  School.  *  Ibid.,  p.  199. 


ATTITUDE    TOWARD    ROMANISM  383 

versation  remarks  have  been  sometimes  heard,  indicating 
a  disposition  to  acknowledge  the  supremacy  of  the  see 
of  Rome,  to  give  way  to  all  its  claims  however  extreme."1 
A  Roman  Catholic  observer  spoke  judicially  when  he 
said :  "It  seems  impossible  to  read  the  works  of  the  Ox- 
ford divines,  and  especially  to  follow  them  chronologic- 
ally, without  discovering  a  daily  approach  toward  our 
holy  Church,  both  in  doctrine  and  affectionate  feeling."2 
But  testimonies  of  this  sort  are  rendered  quite  super- 
fluous in  view  of  the  exodus  to  Rome  in  1845,  and  again 
about  five  years  later. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  century  the  continued  existence 
of  a  strong  Romeward  current  has  been  attested  not  only 
by  a  transference  of  allegiance  to  the  papal  Church  on  the 
part  of  individual  clergymen  and  by  an  extensive  advo- 
cacy of  various  peculiarities  of  Romish  belief  and  prac- 
tice, but  also  by  organized  effort,  through  the  medium  of 
secret  associations,  in  behalf  of  corporate  union  with 
Rome.  From  1877  an  association  has  been  at  work 
whose  name,  that  of  the  Order  of  Corporate  Reunion, 
declares  its  design.  From  published  expressions  of  its 
members  it  is  made  clear  that  the  order  is  not  at  all 
squeamish  in  respect  of  terms,  and  would  be  quite  ready 
to  swallow  the  full  Vatican  program  if  only  by  that 
expedient  the  English  Church  as  a  whole  could  be 
brought  into  junction  with  Rome.  Their  greatest  burden 
of  spirit  seems  to  result  from  a  sense  of  the  unworthiness 
of  the  Church  of  England  to  be  an  object  of  Roman  re- 
gard, so  long  as  it  remains  in  the  low  and  pitiful  condi- 


1  Narrative  of  Events  Connected  with  the  Publication  of  the  Tracts  for 
the  Times,  1843,  p.  53. 

2  Wiseman  cited  by  Henrv  Rogers,  Essays  on  the  Theological  Contro- 
versies of  the  Time,  p.  7. 


384  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

tion  of  a  communion  whose  title  to  ecclesiastical  validity 
is  subject  to  suspicion  and  denial.  Accordingly,  they 
have  been  laboring  to  infuse  into  it  a  strain  of  legitimacy. 
Some  of  the  officials  of  the  order  have  secured  episcopal 
consecration  from  a  source  which  is  believed  to  be  above 
challenge,  and  through  their  instrumentality  the  clergy 
within  the  range  of  their  influence  are  receiving  a  mark 
which  it  is  hoped  will  pass  inspection  at  the  Vatican.  A 
Roman  Catholic  periodical  reported  progress,  in  1894, 
in  these  terms:  "We  have  heard  just  lately  that  there 
are  now  eight  hundred  clergymen  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land who  have  been  validly  ordained  by  Dr.  Lee  and  his 
co-bishops  of  the  Order  of  Corporate  Reunion.  If  so, 
Dr.  Lee's  dream  of  providing  a  body  with  which  the  pope 
could  deal  seems  likely  to  be  realized."1  Other  secret 
associations,  such  as  the  Order  of  the  Holy  Redeemer 
and  the  Society  of  Saint  Osmund,  have  labored,  though 
apparently  in  a  more  limited  range,  to  promote  the  cause 
of  corporate  reunion  with  Rome.2  Even  in  the  United 
States  an  organization  has  been  formed  (1908)  with  the 
declared  object  of  forwarding  the  same  end  in  connection 
with  the  Episcopal  Church  in  this  country.  It  has  not 
been  stated  that  the  organizing  party  has  found  much 
sympathy.  But  certainly  in  common  with  their  English 
brethren  of  like  purpose  they  deserve  recognition.  Their 
humility  is  marvelous.  Rome  has  poured  contempt  on 
their  ecclesiastical  standing,  first  by  treating  their  bishops 
as  mere  laymen,  or  part  and  parcel  of  the  general  body 
of  non-Catholics,  in  the  framing  of  the  invitations  sent 
out  in  connection  with  the  Vatican  Council,  and  then 


1  Catholic  Standard  and  Ransomer,  Nov.  22,   1894.     For  the  facts  see 
Walsh,  pp.  102-iia.  *  Walsh,  pp.  i63ff. 


ATTITUDE    TOWARD    ROMANISM  385 

again  by  formally  declaring  Anglican  orders  null  and 
void.  That  they  should  still  labor  to  shape  themselves 
into  a  present  which  Rome  may  be  persuaded  to  accept 
certainly  shows  that  in  one  sense  they  are  entitled  to  be 
classed  with  the  poor  in  spirit.  If  prizes  should  be  dis- 
tributed for  ecclesiastical  abjectness,  there  ought  to  be  no 
difficulty  about  identifying  the  most  worthy  candidates. 

Those  who  are  exposed  to  the  allurements  of  the 
Roman  tempter  might  profitably  review  the  experiences 
of  their  predecessors,  and  be  warned  against  being  tricked 
by  too  ideal  a  picture  of  things  coveted.  As  one  and 
another  historian  has  taken  pains  to  indicate,  very  scanty 
knowledge  of  Romanism  as  a  practical  working  system 
was  possessed  by  the  first  converts  from  the  ranks  of  the 
Anglo-Catholics  at  the  time  of  their  conversion.  One 
at  least  of  the  prominent  converts  had  not  so  much  as 
seen  a  Roman  Catholic  priest  prior  to  the  occasion  when 
he  sought  one  for  the  sake  of  being  received  into  the 
Roman  communion.  Even  the  most  noted  in  the  list  had 
enjoyed  very  narrow  opportunities  for  any  practical 
acquaintance  with  Romanism.  Manning,  as  his  biog- 
rapher testifies,  was  quite  an  exception  in  respect  of  first- 
hand information  about  the  people  and  the  institutions 
with  which  he  decided  to  connect  himself;  and  even  his 
information  was  no  valid  ground  for  boasting.1 

There  was  very  considerable  opportunity,  therefore, 
for  the  converts  to  make  discoveries  the  reverse  of  grati- 
fying— a  chance  to  find  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
much  less  of  an  ideal  institution  than  they  had  imagined 
it  to  be.  Dollinger  was  probably  not  far  out  of  the  way 

1  Purccll,  Life  of  Manning,  I.  412,  413. 


when  he  remarked :  "If  Newman,  who  knows  early 
church  history  so  well,  had  possessed  equal  knowledge 
of  modern  church  history,  he  never  would  have  become  a 
Roman  Catholic."1  Quite  certain  is  it  that  in  his  rela- 
tions as  a  Roman  Catholic  he  found  a  plenty  of  sore 
vexations.  Newman  himself  frankly  admitted  the  fact, 
though  claiming  that  he  never  regretted  that  he  entered 
into  those  relations.  "I  have  had,"  he  said,  "more  to  try 
and  afflict  me  in  various  ways  as  a  Catholic  than  as  an 
Anglican."2  One  source  of  this  affliction  was  the  hostile 
attitude  toward  himself  of  a  section  of  his  Roman  Catho- 
lic brethren  in  England.  He  was  made  conscious  for 
many  years  that,  as  an  advocate  of  moderate  views,  he 
was  an  object  of  dislike,  of  secret  opposition,  and  of  open 
disparagement,  on  the  part  of  the  radical  Ultramontane 
party  in  England,  the  party  of  which  Manning  was  the 
most  potent  leader  and  Ward  the  most  intemperate 
spokesman.  In  the  decade  preceding  the  Vatican  Coun- 
cil this  opposition  reached  the  point  of  outrage.  The 
day  on  which  Manning  was  consecrated  archbishop  of 
Westminster  (June  8,  1865)  Ward  wrote  to  him  de- 
nouncing Newman  as  "a  disloyal  Catholic."  As  editor  of 
the  Dublin  Review,  Ward  made  use  of  its  columns  to 
slur  the  distinguished  convert.  And  this  seems  to  have 
been  done  with  the  connivance  of  Manning.  Referring 
to  the  evidence  of  his  correspondence  with  Talbot,  at  the 
Vatican,  Purcell  remarks :  "For  those  aspersions,  then, 
on  Newman  which  did  appear  in  the  Dublin  Review — 
and  they  were  fierce  and  frequent — Archbishop  Manning 


»  Cited  by  A.  H.  Hore,  The  Church  of  England  from  William  III  to 
Victoria,  II.  315. 

8  Letter  to  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  postscript,  Feb.  a6,  1875,  p.  349  in  Diffi- 
culties Felt  by  Anglicans  in  Catholic  Teaching,  1876. 


38; 

was  responsible,  since  they  were  published  under  his  tacit 
sanction."  In  this  time  of  polemical  virulence  some  of 
the  Ultramontane  zealots  were  unkind  enough  to  de- 
clare: "Newman's  conversion  is  the  greatest  calamity 
which  has  befallen  the  Catholic  Church  in  our  day."  A 
letter  from  Rome,  which  was  published  in  the  Weekly 
Register,  April  6,  1867,  sharply  attacked  him;  and  when 
some  of  the  Catholic  laity  undertook  to  protest  against 
this  treatment  their  interposition  was  considered  a  proper 
ground  for  increased  spite.  So  we  may  judge  from  these 
words  which  Talbot  transmitted  from  the  pope's  neigh- 
borhood, April  25,  1867:  "It  is  perfectly  true  that  a 
cloud  has  been  hanging  over  Dr.  Newman  in  Rome  ever 
since  the  bishop  of  Newport  delated  him  to  Rome  for 
heresy  in  his  article  in  the  Rambler  on  consulting  the 
laity  on  matters  of  faith.  None  of  his  writings  since 
have  removed  that  cloud.  Every  one  of  them  has  created 
a  controversy,  and  the  spirit  of  them  has  never  been  ap- 
proved in  Rome.  Now,  that  a  set  of  laymen  with  Mr. 
Monsell  at  their  head  should  have  the  audacity  to  say  that 
a  blow  that  touches  Dr.  Newman  is  a  wound  inflicted 
on  the  Catholic  Church  in  England,  is  an  insult  offered  to 
the  Holy  See,  to  your  Grace,  and  to  all  who  have  opposed 
the  Oxford  scheme."1  The  Oxford  scheme  mentioned  in 
this  connection  was  a  project  to  open  at  Oxford,  under 
Newman's  supervision,  an  institution  for  Catholic  youth. 
Manning  opposed  the  scheme  to  bring  Catholic  youth  to 
the  seat  of  the  university,  according  to  his  own  statement, 
on  two  grounds — "the  one  that  the  Catholic  Church 
would  abandon  all  future  effort  to  form  its  own  univer- 
sity, and  the  other,  that  our  higher  laity  would  be,  like 

>  For  the  facts  stated  see  Purcell,  Life  of  Manning,  II.  231,  309-318. 


388  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

the  laity  in  France,  Catholic  in  name,  but  indifferent,  lax, 
and  liberalistic."1 

In  considering  the  basis  of  the  hostile  attitude  of  an 
English  faction  toward  Newman  we  are  apprised  of  an- 
other sore  vexation  which  was  in  store  for  the  convert. 
His  co-religionists  opposed  and  maligned  him  as  one  who 
was  unfriendly  to  the  Vatican  program.  That  they  made 
a  substantially  correct  estimate  of  his  feeling  toward  the 
high  papal  scheme  is  not  to  be  doubted.  For,  while 
Newman,  as  respects  his  personal  beliefs,  may  not  have 
been  violently  opposed  to  the  dogmas  of  papal  absolutism 
and  infallibility,  he  did  profoundly  question  the  propriety 
of  putting  the  clamps  and  fetters  of  such  exacting  dog- 
mas upon  the  consciences  of  Catholics  universally.  He 
was  greatly  distressed  over  the  movement  toward  the 
declaration  of  the  dogmas  in  question.  This  we  know 
from  the  words  which  he  addressed  to  Bishop  Ullathorne 
— words  never  designed  to  fall  under  the  eye  of  the  pub- 
lic. "I  cannot,"  he  wrote,  "help  suffering  with  the  many 
souls  who  are  suffering,  and  I  look  with  anxiety  at  the 
prospect  of  having  to  defend  decisions  which  may  not  be 
difficult  to  my  own  private  judgment,  but  may  be  most 
difficult  to  maintain  logically  in  the  face  of  historical 
facts.  What  have  we  done  to  be  treated  as  the  faithful 
never  were  treated  before  ?  When  has  a  definition  de  fide 
been  a  luxury  of  devotion,  and  not  a  stern  painful  neces- 
sity? Why  should  an  aggressive  insolent  faction  be 
allowed  'to  make  the  heart  of  the  just  sad  whom  the 
Lord  hath  not  made  sorrowful'  ?  Why  cannot  we  be  let 
alone,  when  we  have  pursued  peace  and  thought  no 
evil?"2 


1  Purcell,  II.  349.         *  Cited  by  Hutton,  Cardinal  Newman,  1890,  pp.339,  24°- 


Among  real  troubles,  though  perhaps  of  lesser  moment, 
which  the  convert  encountered  in  the  Roman  refuge,  was 
the  necessity  of  paying  tribute  to  Liguori  as  a  saint  and 
doctor  of  the  Church,  in  spite  of  his  loose  casuistry. 
Manning,  as  a  man  of  the  expediency  type,  found  no 
difficulty  with  Liguori,  but  Newman  was  plainly  revolted 
at  his  undisguised  approval  of  equivocation.  "As  to 
playing  upon  words  or  equivocation,"  he  wrote,  "I  sup- 
pose it  is  from  the  English  habit,  but,  without  meaning 
any  disrespect  to  a  great  saint,  or  wishing  to  set  myself 
up,  or  taking  my  conscience  for  more  than  it  is  worth,  I 
can  only  say  as  a  fact  that  I  admit  it  as  little  as  the  rest 
of  my  countrymen:  and  without  any  reference  to  the 
right  or  the  wrong  of  the  matter,  of  this  I  am  sure,  that, 
if  there  is  one  thing  more  than  another  which  prejudices 
Englishmen  against  the  Catholic  Church,  it  is  the  doctrine 
of  great  authorities  on  the  subject  of  equivocation."1 

The  accession  of  Leo  XIII  brought  to  Newman  a 
measure  of  pontifical  recognition  which  was  quite  impos- 
sible during  the  rule  of  Pius  IX.  But  again  under  Pius 
X  a  bitter  reward  has  been  rendered  to  the  convert,  in 
that  men  claiming  a  relation  of  discipleship  to  him  have 
been  smitten  with  the  sternest  tokens  of  papal  displeasure. 
Their  alleged  discipleship,  it  is  true,  is  open  to  consider- 
able question.  Newman  never  thought  of  bringing  the 
New  Testament  content  itself  under  any  such  wide- 
reaching  law  of  development  as  is  postulated  and  applied 
by  Loisy.  No  more  did  he  intend  by  his  theory  of  doc- 
trinal development  to  license  the  conclusion  of  Loisy  and 
Tyrrell  that  the  formulated  dogmas  of  the  Church  have 
only  a  relative  perfection,  having  served  to  give  suitable 

1  Apologia,  1887,  note  G,  p.  360. 


390  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

expression  to  Christian  beliefs  at  a  particular  stage,  but 
not  necessarily  to  be  counted  fully  suitable  forms  of  ex- 
pression for  all  time.  These  distinguished  representatives 
of  Modernism,  and  others  with  them,  have  advocated 
views  which  Newman  had  no  inclination  to  sanction. 
The  censures,  therefore,  visited  upon  them,  whether  in 
the  denunciations  of  the  Encyclical  against  Modernism 
or  in  sentences  of  personal  excommunication,  are  not 
precisely  of  the  nature  of  adverse  judgments  upon  his 
teaching.  But  that  teaching  helped  to  naturalize  in  their 
circle  the  theory  of  doctrinal  development  or  doctrinal 
evolution.  When,  therefore,  the  voice  of  the  pontiff  con- 
demns, as  their  capital  offense,  the  making  of  everything 
— "dogma,  Church,  worship,  the  books  we  revere  as 
sacred,  even  faith  itself" — subject  to  the  laws  of  evolu- 
tion,1 the  natural  result  will  be  that  the  reproach  which 
falls  upon  them  will  be  carried  over  in  some  measure  to 
the  first  prominent  advocate  among  Catholics  of  the 
theory  of  doctrinal  evolution.  What  Newman  achieved 
was  the  respect  of  the  English  people  for  his  literary 
gifts  and  for  the  strength  of  his  religious  aspirations. 
The  rewards  flowing  out  of  his  new  ecclesiastical  relations 
were  paltry,  and  there  was  always  an  artificial  element  in 
his  adjustment  to  the  Roman  system. 

For  the  construction  of  a  companion  picture  out  of  the 
fortunes  of  the  other  distinguished  convert  there  seem,  at 
first  sight,  to  be  no  materials.  Linked  from  the  begin- 
ning of  his  course  as  a  Roman  Catholic  with  the  winning 
party,  promoted  to  the  position  of  highest  trust  that  was 
open  to  a  member  of  his  Church  in  England,  and  lauded 
in  all  Ultramontane  circles  as  one  of  the  foremost  agents 

1  Encyclical  Pascendi  Gregis,  Sept.  8,  1907. 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  ROMANISM  391 

in  the  consummation  of  the  Vatican  enterprise,  what 
occasion  did  Manning  ever  encounter  for  disillusionment 
or  regret  ?  Well,  in  the  first  place,  he  did  not  run  across 
an  ideal  state  of  things  at  Rome.  In  connection  with 
his  visit  in  1876  he  complained  to  a  friend  that  "Pope 
Pius  IX  was  growing  old  and  garrulous,  and  not  to  be 
trusted  with  a  secret."  He  found,  in  fact,  the  holy  city 
a  decidedly  comfortless  place.  "Seeing,"  says  his  biog- 
rapher, "how  things  were  drifting  from  bad  to  worse, 
with  no  hand  to  stay  the  evil,  no  master  mind  to  discover 
and  apply  a  remedy,  what  wonder  that  Cardinal  Man- 
ning, after  a  brief  sojourn  of  three  weeks,  left  Rome, 
'sorrowful  of  heart/  as  he  said,  'even  unto  death'  P"1  In 
this  mood,  we  can  easily  imagine,  the  cardinal  may  almost 
have  repented  of  the  part  which  he  had  taken  in  turning 
the  pope  into  an  earthly  god.  At  a  later  date  he  had 
occasion  to  comment  on  the  incapacity  of  the  Holy  Office 
and  on  "the  essential  injustice  of  its  procedures  and  its 
secrecy."2  Furthermore,  he  had  an  experience  of  cold- 
ness, not  to  say  of  displeasure,  at  headquarters  because 
he  had  ventured  to  advise  the  ecclesiastical  authority  to 
modify  its  policy  of  brusque  hostility  to  the  kingdom  of 
Italy  on  the  score  of  the  lost  temporal  power.  The  editor 
of  an  influential  paper  was  directed  not  to  mention  his 
name  with  approbation,  and,  according  to  his  own  phrase, 
he  was  looked  upon  in  Rome  as  an  "Italianissimo."3 

In  the  second  place,  Manning  found  in  England  a 
Catholic  laity  provokingly  apathetic  and  unresponsive  to 
the  demands  of  philanthropic  reforms.  He  noticed  that 
from  the  days  of  Wilberforce  all  such  reforms  had  been 


1  Purcell,  Life  of  Manning,  II.  573,  574.  •Ibid.,  II.  583. 

» Ibid.,  II.  615. 


392  THE    ANGLICAN     TYPE 

the  work  of  Noncomformists  and  Anglicans,  the  Catho- 
lics of  England  having  for  the  most  part  stood  aloof.  He 
virtually  turned  advocate  for  these  parties,  and  credited 
them  with  a  generous  share  of  the  sanctities  of  Christian 
character  and  life,  as  against  the  unfriendly  judgment 
of  the  members  of  his  own  communion.  Referring  to 
these  outsiders,  he  testified:  "I  have  intimately  known 
souls  living  by  faith,  hope,  and  charity,  in  constant  medi- 
tation on  Holy  Scripture,  unceasing  prayer,  complete 
self-denial,  personal  work  among  the  poor;  in  a  word, 
living  lives  of  visible  sanctification,  as  undoubtedly  the 
work  of  the  Holy  Ghost  as  I  have  ever  seen.  I  have  seen 
this  in  whole  families,  rich  and  poor,  and  in  all  conditions 
of  life."1  Thus  Manning  in  his  mature  years,  after  a 
full  experience  of  what  could  be  found  in  the  Church  of 
Rome,  bore  witness  that  sanctity  is  no  exclusive  mark 
of  that  Church.  With  all  his  service  to  the  Ultramon- 
tane cause,  he  retained,  as  did  Newman,  too  large  a  rem- 
nant of  independent  English  manhood  to  quite  agree 
with  the  Roman  model.  Both  men,  in  the  sum  of  their 
experiences,  furnish  lessons  that  may  well  have  a  sobering 
effect  upon  those  Anglo-Catholics  who  are  too  much  in- 
toxicated by  the  lofty  and  obtrusive  pretensions  of  Rome 
to  have  a  clear  view  of  her  real  characteristics. 

VI. — ESTIMATE  OF  THE  ANGLO-CATHOLIC  MOVEMENT 

A  severe  judgment  on  the  element  of  sacerdotalism  in 
the  Anglo-Catholic  movement  would  not  necessarily 
imply  that  the  movement  was  not  attended  with  certain 
apparent  benefits.  A  fresh  religious  interest,  though 

1  Purcell,  II.  715,  779-781. 


ESTIMATE  393 

starting  from  a  very  imperfect  theoretical  basis,  may  well 
be  armed  with  a  considerable  potency  for  good,  at  least 
for  a  limited  period.  The  untoward  results  which  logic- 
ally are  connected  with  the  imperfect  basis  may  be  ex- 
pected ultimately  to  come  to  manifestation,  but  for  a 
time  they  may  be  outrun  by  the  salutary  results  which  the 
fresh  religious  interest  itself  tends  to  generate.  Now,  the 
movement  which  began  at  Oxford  in  1833  undoubtedly 
operated  as  an  awakening  agency  within  the  English 
Establishment.  It  thrust  certain  ecclesiastical  ideals  into 
the  face  of  the  clergy,  and  compelled  attention  to  them. 
It  impinged  against  clerical  habitudes,  and  supplied  a 
motive  for  earnest  contemplation  of  the  demands  of  the 
clerical  vocation.  The  consequence  was  that  it  became 
less  easy  for  the  clergy  to  maintain  the  attitude  of  half- 
interested  functionaries  or  placemen.  From  the  impact 
of  Anglo-Catholic  teaching  a  number  of  them  derived  not 
only  an  increased  sense  of  pastoral  importance,  but  also 
an  enlarged  incentive  to  pastoral  enterprise.  Whether 
the  new  zeal  was  according  to  knowledge  or  not,  it  had 
the  worth  of  zeal  in  the  direction  of  practical  activity.  It 
tended  to  limit  sloth  and  slovenliness,  and  to  multiply  the 
manifestations  of  church  life.  On  the  side  of  the 
externals  of  religion  the  Anglo-Catholic  scheme  was 
adapted  to  work  a  transition  which,  within  limits,  might 
be  counted  an  improvement.  Through  the  vast  signifi- 
cance which  it  attached  to  sacramental  rites  it  furnished 
an  incentive  to  give  large  heed  to  the  adornment  of  the 
sanctuary  and  in  general  to  pay  respect  to  the  aesthetic 
requirements  of  worship.  That  the  given  scheme  was  an 
indispensable  means  of  this  result  there  is  no  sufficient 
warrant  for  assuming.  Pastoral  industry  and  a  prudent 


394  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

regard  for  the  aesthetic  demands  of  worship  are  not 
bound  by  any  intrinsic  bonds  to  Anglo-Catholic  postu- 
lates. We  simply  have  the  fact  that  in  the  actual  condi- 
tion in  which  the  Anglo-Catholic  movement  found  the 
Church  of  England  it  made,  to  all  appearances,  an  ap- 
preciable contribution  to  the  specified  interests.  Just 
what  estimate  should  be  made  of  this  contribution  it  is 
difficult  to  determine  at  so  early  a  date.  The  period  also 
has  been  too  short  to  bring  to  adequate  manifestation  the 
practical  results  of  a  less  creditable  order.  We  notice 
that  an  observer,  who  seems  to  write  in  a  judicial  temper, 
imputes  to  the  Anglo-Catholic  movement  a  portion  of  the 
responsibility  for  aloofness  and  indifference  to  religious 
dogma  exhibited  recently  by  a  considerable  body  of 
English  laymen.1  Whether  such  a  result  has  been 
worked  out  already  or  not,  we  are  compelled  to  regard 
it  as  being  in  the  natural  order.  It  would  be  a  cause  for 
abundant  surprise  if  such  a  system  as  that  which  was 
framed  by  the  Tractarians  and  developed  by  their  suc- 
cessors should  not  entail  a  reaction  in  the  direction  of  in- 
difference and  skepticism.  We  cannot  believe  that  it  is 
well  suited  to  the  kind  of  men  which  England  has  grown 
since  the  papal  yoke  was  cast  off.  A  continued  attempt 
to  press  it  upon  them  must  result  in  a  recoil. 

I.  With  this  much  of  remark  on  the  practical  grounds 
of  an  estimate,  we  proceed  to  judge  of  the  Anglo-Catholic 
movement  by  the  essential  content  of  the  system  which  it 
has  been  instrumental  in  framing  and  propagating.  And 
here  it  will  be  appropriate  to  follow  the  order  of  topics 
observed  in  the  historical  exposition.  We  have,  then,  -in 

1  Sir  Samuel  Hall,  A  Short  History  of  the  Oxford  Movement,  1906,  p.  350. 


ESTIMATE  395 

the  first  place,  to  consider  the  merits  of  the  principle  of 
authority  to  which  the  authors  and  advocates  of  the 
movement  made  appeal. 

That  principle,  as  has  been  observed,  was  expressed 
in  the  proposition,  that  on  questions  of  doctrine  a  decid- 
ing voice  must  be  given  to  Catholic  antiquity,  and  on 
other  questions  a  profound  deference  be  accorded  to  its 
verdict.  In  challenging  the  right  of  this  proposition,  it 
is  not  necessary  to  enter  into  any  wholesale  disparage- 
ment of  the  early  Christian  fathers.  Considering  the 
enormous  difficulty  of  the  task  of  construing  the  data 
of  a  new  religion  and  building  up  a  system  harmonious 
in  itself  and  true  to  the  original  data,  they  accomplished 
a  work  deserving  of  much  praise  and  gratitude.  But  why 
should  their  work  be  taken  as  giving  the  authoritative 
standard?  The  Tractarians  have  told  us  that  no  claim 
of  a  special  patristic  inspiration  is  to  be  maintained. 
What,  then,  qualified  the  fathers  to  speak  with  definite 
authority?  Their  nearness,  it  has  been  said,  to  Christ 
and  his  inspired  apostles,  and  their  consequent  ability 
to  serve  as  authentic  witnesses  to  the  true  content  of 
Christianity  as  a  revealed  system  of  truth.  But  surely 
mere  chronological  proximity,  while  it  may  have  been 
helpful  in  some  respects,  was  an  imperfect  guarantee  of 
an  unbiased  and  rounded  understanding  of  things  ante- 
cedent. Cerinthus  was  as  near  the  foundation  epoch  of 
Christianity  as  was  Clement  of  Rome  or  any  other  of  the 
apostolic  fathers.  He  was  not  proof,  however,  on  that 
account,  against  serious  aberrations.  The  Ebionites  were 
in  evidence  as  a  distinct  party  close  to  the  verge  of  the 
New  Testament  era.  Basilides,  Valentinus,  Marcion, 
and  other  founders  of  Gnostic  sects  were  quite  as  early 


396  THE    ANGLICAN    TYPE 

as  Justin  and  the  group  of  apologists  associated  with 
him  in  the  central  part  of  the  second  century.  Irenaeus 
and  Clement  of  Alexandria  had  occasion  to  comment 
upon  a  great  and  motley  throng  of  heretical  parties  which 
had  preceded  them.  Theodotus,  Praxeas,  and  other 
Anti-Trinitarians  were  on  the  field  by  the  age  of  Ter- 
tullian  and  Hippolytus.  Sabellius  taught  in  the  time  of 
Origen,  and  Paul  of  Samosata  followed  shortly  after. 
Arius  preceded  Athanasius,  and  Apollinaris  was  contem- 
porary with  Basil.  Throughout  the  fifth  and  sixth  cen- 
turies beliefs  that  came  to  be  stamped  as  heresies  had  a 
large  following.  And  so  the  record  runs.  How,  then, 
does  the  proximity  of  the  fathers  to  the  fountain-head  of 
Christian  teaching  attest  their  competency  to  give  a  per- 
fectly correct  version  of  that  teaching?  If  proximity  in 
itself  were  a  complete  safeguard  on  the  side  of  orthodox 
opinions,  it  ought  to  have  kept  Cerinthus,  the  Ebionites, 
the  Gnostics,  and  all  the  rest  in  the  long  and  continuous 
line  of  the  heterodox  no  less  true  to  the  proper  Christian 
faith  than  were  the  contemporary  fathers. 

An  illegitimate  play  with  the  term  "fathers"  gets  into 
operation  when  those  who  were  thus  entitled  are  allowed 
to  occupy  the  whole  field  of  vision,  and  are  rated  as 
authoritative  just  because  they  make  a  continuous  chain 
back  to  the  apostles.  Why  is  a  certain  succession  of  men 
called  "fathers,"  and  why  is  that  title  denied  to  a  line  of 
their  contemporaries?  Plainly  for  no  other  reason  than 
that  in  the  judgment  of  later  generations  the  former  were 
sane  and  reliable  in  construing  the  primitive  data  of 
Christianity  as  compared  with  the  latter.  They  do  not 
have  a  title  to  authority  simply  because  they  were  fathers ; 
rather  they  have  been  classified  as  fathers,  in  distinction 


ESTIMATE  397 

from  many  of  their  contemporaries,  because  they  have 
been  regarded  as  doing  relatively  well  in  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  Christian  system. 

The  Tractarian,  or  Anglo-Catholic,  would  perhaps 
claim  that  justice  is  not  done  to  his  point  of  view  in  the 
foregoing  representation,  since  he  locates  authority  not 
in  the  individual  judgments  of  the  fathers,  but  in  their 
concurrent  decisions.  This  aspect  of  his  contention,  it  is 
to  be  admitted,  deserves  some  consideration.  We  reply, 
then,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  argument  from  mere  prox- 
imity to  the  original  sources  must  fail  to  hold  of  the  fathers 
collectively,  in  so  far  as  it  fails  to  hold  of  them  individu- 
ally. If  each  of  the  fathers  had  heterodox  contemporaries, 
then  the  whole  group  of  fathers  had  heterodox  con- 
temporaries, and  heterodoxy  is  proved  to  have  been 
quite  as  possible  as  orthodoxy  in  the  age  following  the 
apostles.  In  the  second  place,  we  reply  that  the  concur- 
rence of  the  fathers  in  their  doctrinal  views  was  subject 
to  so  many  and  so  serious  limitations  that  one  who  looks 
to  that  concurrence  as  affording  the  decisive  standard  is 
likely  to  experience  very  considerable  embarrassments. 
Divergent  and  even  contradictory  views  were  held  in  the 
ranks  of  the  fathers  on  themes  of  very  considerable  im- 
portance— on  the  second  coming  and  millennial  reign  of 
Christ,  on  the  position  of  the  primitive  Adam  and  the 
results  of  his  fall  to  his  posterity,  on  the  character  of 
Christ's  redemptive  work,  on  the  method  of  grace,  on 
divine  election  or  predestination,  and  on  the  proper  in- 
terpretation of  the  eucharist.  Even  on  a  topic  of  such 
capital  importance  as  the  person  of  Christ  individual 
fathers  made  statements  which  could  not  be  carried  out 
to  their  logical  results  without  coming  into  conflict  with 


398  THE  ANGLICAN  TYPE 

the  Nicene  and  Chalcedonian  standards.  In  the  third 
place,  we  answer  that  approximate  or  even  complete 
unanimity  of  the  fathers  relative  to  a  given  point  would 
not  be  adequate  to  prove  that  point  an  indubitable  part 
of  an  original  and  incorrupt  Christianity.  Doubtless 
the  unanimity  would  afford  a  certain  presumption  in  its 
favor.  A  measure  of  probability  would  be  established 
thereby  that  it  could  claim  to  be  in  the  line  of  the  dogmat- 
ic impulse  proceeding  from  Christ  and  the  apostles.  But 
probability  is  not  certainty.  The  item  supported  by  the 
patristic  consensus  would  need  to  be  discoverable  in  the 
Xew  Testament  oracles  by  a  sober  exegesis,  and  be  found 
conformable  to  the  controlling  spirit  of  those  oracles,  in 
order  to  be  able  to  make  any  cogent  claim  on  acceptance. 
False  drifts  have  ruled  the  great  body  of  Christian 
teachers  in  one  or  another  matter  through  later  periods. 
What  gives  assurance  that  there  were  no  such  drifts  in 
the  patristic  age?  Rather  we  may  ask,  How  could  the 
fathers,  as  pursuing  comparatively  untried  paths,  escape 
giving  too  much  of  an  inclination  to  one  side  or  another? 
They  were  under  the  pressure  of  great  practical  exigen- 
cies, and  we  should  need  to  suppose  them  exempt  from 
common  human  infirmities  not  to  count  them  liable  to 
yield  too  much  to  the  pressure.  Take,  for  instance,  the 
ordeal  imposed  upon  them  by  the  outcropping  of  factions 
and  heresies  in  startling  profusion  a  generation  or  two 
after  the  disappearance  of  the  apostolic  leaders.  What 
wonder  that  in  face  of  these  centrifugal  forces,  which 
seemed  prophetic  of  the  disintegration  of  Christianity, 
those  who  felt  a  responsibility  for  conserving  the  unity 
of  the  Church  were  driven  to  such  an  accentuation  of 
priestly  and  episcopal  authority  as  was  pronouncedly 


ESTIMATE  399 

beyond  the  level  of  the  polity  delivered  by  the  apostles, 
intrinsically  adapted  to  work  a  one-sided  development 
of  the  notion  of  ecclesiastical  magistracy.  If  the  Trac- 
tarians,  in  order  to  safeguard  the  Anglican  Establishment 
and  to  exalt  it  far  above  the  plane  of  all  Dissenting 
bodies,  were  moved  to  magnify  very  greatly  the  office  of 
Anglican  priests  and  bishops,  why  should  not  the  Catho- 
lic fathers  be  supposed  to  have  proceeded  under  the 
stimulus  of  a  similar  motive?  Take  again  the  exposure 
of  the  fathers  on  the  side  of  sacramental  mysticism.  The 
same  cause  which  led  them  to  an  incautious  exaltation  of 
the  dignity  and  authority  of  priest  or  bishop  would  tend 
to  put  them  off  guard  against  an  undue  magnifying  of 
the  rites  which  it  was  the  prerogative  of  the  priest  or 
bishop  to  administer.  Moreover,  an  incentive  in  the 
same  direction  could  easily  be  fostered  by  a  felt  demand 
to  outdo  a  competing  heathenism.  The  contemporary 
classic  religion  had  its  famed  mysteries  to  which  great 
virtue  was  attached.  How  easy  for  an  apologetic  spirit 
to  be  inclined  to  commend  Christianity  by  lauding  the 
superior  efficacy  of  the  Christian  mysteries.  Then,  too, 
a  rhetorical  poetizing  disposition,  which  claimed  a  large 
constituency  among  the  fathers,  might  very  naturally 
become  auxiliary  to  such  forms  of  description  of  the  chief 
Christian  rites  as  would  favor  the  growth  of  an  ultra 
sacramental  mysticism.  These  illustrations  may  serve 
to  show  the  liability  of  the  fathers  as  a  body  to  yield  to  a 
dubious  or  false  drift  in  theory  and  practice.  The  in- 
evitable conclusion  is  that  even  general  consent  among 
them  does  not  afford  assurance  of  an  authentic  induction 
from  original  Christianity  or  of  real  agreement  there- 
with. Of  course,  the  fact  of  a  false  drift  in  patristic  con- 


400  THE  ANGLICAN  TYPE 

viction  is  not  to  be  assumed  on  merely  speculative 
grounds.  But  no  more  is  the  fact  to  be  denied  on  the 
same  kind  of  grounds.  A  patristic  consensus  is  open  to 
examination.  It  cannot  be  made  immediately  and  un- 
conditionally authoritative  on  the  basis  of  reason  or 
known  fact.1 

What  has  been  said  applies  obviously  to  the  Trac- 
tarian  assumption  of  the  infallibility  of  an  ecumenical 
council  representative  of  the  early  undivided  Church. 
Such  a  council  may  conceivably  have  done  work  fitted 
to  stand  through  all  subsequent  ages.  But  there  is  no 
pledge  in  the  nature  of  the  case  that  its  decisions  should 
be  irreformable.  As  was  shown  in  an  earlier  part  of 
the  volume,  the  gospel  promises  which  have  been  sup- 
posed to  contain  a  pledge  of  infallibility  have  been  made 
to  include  it  only  by  having  it  read  into  them.  But  aside 
from  these  promises  no  pledge  of  an  inerrant  assembly 
can  possibly  be  discovered.  An  aggregation  of  fallible 
units  cannot  make  an  infallible  whole.  Even  complete 
unanimity  on  the  part  of  a  so-called  ecumenical  assembly, 
and  on  the  part  of  the  Christian  constituency  represented 
by  it,  could  not  earn  the  stamp  of  infallibility  for  its 
decrees.  It  would  still  be  possible  for  a  later  age  to 
inquire  whether  some  fault  in  philosophy,  in  criticism,  or 
in  the  interpretation  of  practical  demands  had  not  de- 
flected the  judgment  of  the  Christian  body  as  a  whole 
from  the  true  line.  Indeed,  so  plainly  void  of  proof  is 
the  contention  for  strict  infallibility  that  some  Anglo- 
Catholics  have  preferred  to  claim  simply  that  the  Church 

1  The  question  of  the  authority  of  original  Christianity  obviously  does 
not  need  to  be  considered  here,  the  point  of  objection  to  Tractarianism 
being  that  it  failed  to  justify  its  assumption  that  a  patristic  consensus 
must  accord  with  that  original  Christianity  which  it  confessed  to  be  au- 
thoritative. 


ESTIMATE  401 

is  "indefectible."  meaning  by  this  statement  that  in 
the  long  run  it  will  not  be  given  over  to  any  serious 
error. 

The  overburdensome  task  which  the  Tractarian  im- 
posed upon  himself  in  undertaking  to  assert  his  high  claim 
for  patristic  authority  was  made  very  conspicuous  in  the 
extravagant  estimate  which  he  was  constrained  to  place 
upon  the  exegesis  of  the  fathers.  As  was  indicated  by 
citations  from  the  Tracts  for  the  Times,  he  felt  compelled 
to  justify  the  mystical  allegorizing  method  of  interpreta- 
tion so  largely  current  in  the  first  centuries.  What  better 
is  this  than  the  canonizing  of  an  obvious  defect  ?  On  the 
basis  of  such  an  exegetical  method  the  exploits  of  an 
ingenious  imagination  are  made  to  take  precedence  of 
critical  judgment,  and  texts  are  compelled  to  yield,  not 
the  significance  which  a  due  consideration  of  conditions 
and  context  would  elicit,  but  that  which  it  may  be  con- 
venient to  have  them  yield.  The  fathers  doubtless  did 
some  good  exegetical  work,  but  the  cause  which  needs  to 
count  their  prodigal  use  of  mystical  meanings  as  quite 
normal  advertises  itself  as  put  to  difficult  straits  for 
means  of  defense. 

Isaac  Taylor,  in  his  book  on  Ancient  Christianity,  may 
not  have  said  the  best  that  can  be  said  in  behalf  of  the 
fathers ;  but  he  made  a  perfectly  true  statement  when  he 
remarked :  "Either  to  worship  the  pristine  Church,  or  to 
condemn  it  in  the  mass,  would  be  just  as  unwise  as  to 
treat  the  Church  of  our  own  times,  or  of  any  other  times, 
in  a  manner  equally  indiscriminating."1  Had  not  the 
Tractarians  looked  through  the  golden  mist  of  ecclesias- 
tical fancy  and  ecclesiastical  convenience,  they  never 

1  Vol.  I,  p.  56,  edit,  of  1844. 


402  THE  ANGLICAN  TYPE 

could  have  felt  justified  in  ascribing  to  Catholic  antiquity 
so  unrestricted  an  authority. 

In  proportion  as  the  Tractarian  leaders  and  their  suc- 
cessors failed  to  justify  the  exaltation  of  Catholic  an- 
tiquity into  a  standard,  they  very  much  abridged  the 
right,  claimed  at  least  by  some  of  them,  to  berate  the 
Protestant  principle  of  private  judgment.  Indeed,  as  one 
or  another  of  them  came  to  see,  though  Catholic  antiquity 
should  be  counted  authoritative,  it  was  such  a  multifold, 
varied,  and  extensive  thing  that,  unless  an  infallible  in- 
terpreter should  be  set  over  it,  a  great  field  would  still 
be  open  to  private  judgment.  What  has  been  said  else- 
where leaves  little  occasion  to  add  that  the  bringing  in  of 
a  so-called  infallible  interpreter  would  not  legitimately 
avail  to  banish  private  judgment,  since  there  would  still 
be  a  demand  to  pass  on  his  credentials,  and  also  to  dis- 
criminate as  to  the  sense  of  his  interpretations  if  these 
should  become  a  considerable  body,  with  the  well-nigh 
inevitable  result  of  suggesting  different  meanings.  And 
here  we  are  happy  to  find  ourselves  in  accord  with  an 
Anglo-Catholic  who  certainly  cleared  himself  of  all  sus- 
picion of  extravagant  fondness  for  Protestantism.  "A 
person,"  says  Dr.  Littledale,  "of  ordinary  understanding 
and  liberty  of  action  can  no  more  get  rid  of  private  judg- 
ment than  he  can  jump  off  his  own  shadow."1  Of  course, 
this  point  of  view  does  not  deny  that  a  profound  moral 
obligation  rests  upon  every  man  not  to  judge  in  a  rash 
ultra-individualistic  and  egoistic  manner.  The  right  of 
private  judgment  is  not,  morally  considered,  the  right  of 
private  caprice. 

In  place  of  repeating  the  Tractarian   stress   on  the 

1  Plain  Reasons  Against  Joining  the  Church  of  Rome,  p.  1 28. 


ESTIMATE  403 

authority  of  Christian  antiquity,  some  representatives  of 
the  Anglo-Catholic  school  in  recent  times,  who  have  been 
constrained  to  give  considerable  scope  to  the  idea  of  doc- 
trinal development,  have  preferred  to  emphasize  the 
standing  infallibility  of  the  Church  Catholic  in  all  matters 
of  fundamental  belief.  As  an  energetic  advocate  of  this 
standpoint  maintains,  what  the  Catholic  Church  (in  its 
several  branches)  has  agreed  to  hold  and  continues  to 
hold  bears  the  seal  of  infallibility.1  With  all  respect  to 
the  learned  advocate  we  are  compelled  to  say  that  he 
asserts  rather  than  proves  his  proposition.  On  the  side 
of  a  supposed  scriptural  basis  he  can  only  repeat  what 
Roman  Catholic  apologists  have  said  in  behalf  of  the 
dogma  of  ecclesiastical  infallibility;  and  we  have  already 
seen  how  far  are  the  relevant  texts  from  containing  the 
dogma.2  As  respects  a  rational  justification  of  the  dogma 
he  also  comes  far  short.  All  the  individual  minds  in  the 
Church,  he  fully  admits,  are  fallible;  nevertheless,  he 
argues,  the  Church  is  infallible  because  its  "corporate 
mind"  is  under  the  supernatural  guidance  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  But  what  is  this  corporate  mind?  Obviously 
nothing  in  the  sphere  of  reality,  but  simply  a  convenient 
fiction  for  associating  together  minds  that  in  some  par- 
ticulars have  a  similar  content.  The  individual  minds 
are  the  only  real  subjects  for  the  Holy  Spirit  to  operate 
upon.  In  order,  therefore,  to  reach  an  infallible  result, 
he  must  overcome,  or  effectually  negate,  the  fallibility  of 
the  individual  minds  in  relation  to  that  result.  And  for 
accomplishing  this  task,  within  any  specified  interval, 
omnipotence  itself  cannot  be  pronounced  indubitably  ade- 


»  P.  J.  Hall,  Authority,  Ecclesiastical  and  Biblical. 
•  Part  i,  chap,  i,  sect.  iv. 


404  THE  ANGLICAN  TYPE 

quate.  It  is  possible  that  the  perverse  wills  of  men. should 
introduce  a  false  drift  and  bring  forth  a  long-standing 
consensus  in  error.  Indeed,  there  is  a  weighty  judgment 
in  the  domain  of  devout  and  enlightened  scholarship 
that  this  very  thing  has  taken  place  within  the  bounds  of 
so-called  Catholic  teaching.  To  mention  a  prominent 
item,  there  is  a  growing  conviction  that  the  doctrine  of 
original  sin,  as  held  in  common  by  the  great  sacerdotal 
parties — the  doctrine,  namely,  that  all  men,  irrespective 
of  real  personal  agency,  are  born  in  a  state  of  condemna- 
tion— has  but  a  paltry  basis  in  the  Scriptures,  is  fla- 
grantly at  variance  with  a  rational  interpretation  of  re- 
sponsibility, and  amounts  to  a  grave  imputation  against 
the  righteousness  of  divine  administration.  Here  cer- 
tainly is  a. challenge  to  the  infallibility  of  the  "corporate 
mind"  of  the  Church  which  requires  a  better  answer  than 
has  yet  been  given.  Challenges  of  like  cogency  could 
be  drawn  from  the  sacerdotal  doctrines  of  the  eucharist 
and  priestly  absolution.  Anglo-Catholics  might  also  re- 
flect very  appropriately  upon  the  adverse  bearing  which 
the  act  of  a  majority  of  all  who  boast  the  name  of 
Catholic,  in  accepting  dogmas  of  such  fundamental  con- 
sequence as  those  proclaimed  by  the  Vatican  Council, 
has  upon  the  notion  of  an  infallible  corporate  mind  in  the 
Church.  If  a  majority  can  thus  go  astray  on  matters  of 
the  greatest  dogmatic  moment,  why  not  three  quarters, 
or  four  fifths,  or  nine  tenths?  Why  not  practically  the 
whole  Church? 

II.  Relative  to  the  Anglo-Catholic  maxim  on  apos- 
tolical succession,  viewed  as  an  indispensable  condition 
of  the  existence  of  a  true  Church,  a  ground  of  objection 


ESTIMATE  405 

is  furnished,  in  the  first  place,  in  the  improbable  character 
of  the  assumption  that  it  was  the  divine  pleasure  to  tie 
up  Christianity  for  all  time  to  a  particular  administrative 
scheme.  Doubtless  it  can  be  urged  that  the  New  Testa- 
ment administrators  seem  not  to  have  given  any  place  to 
the  notion  of  a  possible  breach  of  ecclesiastical  continuity ; 
that  the  apostles  apparently  went  on  the  supposition  that 
those  who  were  immediately  commissioned  by  them  to 
fulfill  pastoral  offices  would  commission  others,  and  so 
in  perpetuity  the  bond  of  connection  between  one  genera- 
tion of  officials  and  another  would  be  conserved.  In 
reply,  it  is  to  be  said  that  in  proceeding  thus  the  apostles 
adopted  a  course  which  governments  of  every  description 
naturally  adopt.  All  parties  endowed  with  governmental 
prerogatives  presume  upon  continuity,  upon  the  observ- 
ance of  some  regular  scheme  of  official  succession.  But 
is  legitimacy  of  government  forever  dependent  on  the 
observance  of  the  scheme?  Has  England  been  without 
legitimate  government  for  more  than  two  centuries  be- 
cause the  Stuarts  were  driven  out  ?  Hardly  a  man,  prob- 
ably, in  the  whole  British  domain  would  care  to  elect 
that  conclusion.  It  is  recognized  in  the  secular  sphere 
that  there  may  be  just  occasion  for  a  breach  in  the  suc- 
cession, and  that  legitimate  government  may  survive  the 
breach.  So  by  analogy,  we  may  conclude,  is  it  in  the 
ecclesiastical  sphere.  Legitimacy  here  is  not  to  be  judged 
by  a  narrow  external  standard.  Those  who  claim  to 
bear  rule  in  the  line  of  descent  from  the  apostles  may 
conceivably  be  so  remote  from  apostolic  Christianity  that 
no  practical  expedient  may  be  left  for  saving  the  interests 
of  that  Christianity  except  by  breaking  connection  with 
them.  The  severing  of  the  external  bond  under  the  stress 


406  THE  ANGLICAN  TYPE 

of  such  an  exigency  is  rather  a  means  of  conserving  than 
of  destroying  ecclesiastical  legitimacy.  Moreover,  it  is 
not  to  be  overlooked  that  the  normal  progress  of  ecclesias- 
tical society  may  very  well  be  regarded  as  justifying  and 
even  demanding  changes  in  forms  of  administration. 
The  propriety  of  such  forms  is  by  no  means  independent 
of  the  character  of  the  constituency  to  which  they 
apply.  In  the  civil  sphere  the  growth  of  a  self-govern- 
ing faculty  in  the  people  tends  universally  to  abolish 
absolute  monarchy  and  to  introduce  a  type  of  govern- 
ment either  virtually  or  formally  republican.  This 
involves  no  usurpation  on  the  part  of  the  people ;  it  is  in 
the  rational  order,  and  therefore  in  the  divine  order, 
and  no  record  of  anointed  kings  who  have  ruled  with  a 
high  hand  can  bring  its  rightfulness  into  dispute.  Sim- 
ilarly, for  aught  that  anyone  is  authorized  to  assert, 
growth  in  religious  intelligence  and  in  ability  of  self- 
direction  may  legitimate  changes  in  ecclesiastical  admin- 
istration, more  or  less  comprehensive  movements  from 
a  hierarchical  type  toward  a  republican  or  democratic 
type.  The  assumption  that,  because  Christ  gave  special 
responsibilities  to  a  select  group  of  disciples,  therefore 
all  legitimate  ecclesiastical  authority  must  be  in  a  straight 
line  of  succession  from  them,  and  no  change  is  warrant- 
able except  by  the  initiative  of  the  upper  rank  of  a  hier- 
archy, is  a  thoroughly  disputable  assumption.  The 
choice  of  the  specially  trained  group  was  a  practical  ex- 
pedient for  securing  the  establishment  of  Christianity  in 
the  world.  No  one  is  qualified  to  say  that  it  supplies  the 
authoritative  norm  for  the  perpetual  government  of  the 
Church.  As  peoples,  in  the  order  of  divine  providence, 
reach  a  stage  of  self  governing  capacity,  so  it  might  be 


ESTIMATE  407 

that  the  general  body  of  Christian  citizens  should  come 
to  a  point  of  competency  to  shape  ecclesiastical  govern- 
ment, and  be  guilty  of  no  disloyalty  to  Christ  in  so  doing. 
The  Anglo-Catholic  inference  as  to  Christ's  intention 
overreaches  probabilities  as  well  as  certainties. 

In  the  second  place,  the  propriety  of  insistence  on 
apostolic  succession  may  be  challenged  on  the  score  of 
the  absence  of  satisfactory  proof  that  any  such  thing  has 
been  maintained  in  the  Church  of  England  or  anywhere 
else.  Archbishop  Whately  was  not  speaking  rashly 
when  he  said:  "There  is  not  a  minister  in  all  Christen- 
dom who  is  able  to  trace  up  with  any  approach  to  cer- 
tainty his  own  spiritual  pedigree."1  The  ability  to  give 
merely  a  presumably  unbroken  catalogue  of  names  in  an 
episcopal  succession,  it  should  be  observed,  is  by  no 
means  the  whole  demand.  Some  scheme  of  means  must 
be  supposed  necessary  for  the  transmission  of  the  apos- 
tolic gift  from  one  episcopal  incumbent  to  another,  and 
it  must  be  certified  that  this  scheme  of  means,  in  every 
requisite  item,  has  been  used  in  every  one  of  the  whole 
series  of  ordinations  from  the  apostles  down.  "Now  the 
evidence,"  as  Frederic  Myers  argues,  "which  is  necessary 
to  the  establishing  of  this  is  of  too  complex  and  subtle  a 
character  to  be  conveyed  through  the  ordinary  channels 
of  human  testimony."2  That  the  scheme  of  means,  requi- 
site for  maintaining  the  succession,  has  not  been  duly 
observed  in  the  Anglican  Establishment  has  been 
solemnly  declared  by  Roman  Catholic  authority.  The 
grounds  of  this  adverse  decision,  we  have  admitted,  are 
not  very  substantial.  But  doubt  as  to  the  conclusiveness 

1  The  Kingdom  of  Christ,  Essay  ii.  §  30. 

*  Catholic  Thoughts  on  the  Church  of  Christ  and  the  Church  of  England, 
pp.  102,  103. 


4o8  THE  ANGLICAN  TYPE 

of  particular  papal  criticisms  affords  no  justification  for 
a  positive  acceptance  of  the  integrity  of  the  Anglican 
succession.  Where  a  great  part  of  the  pertinent  data  is 
beyond  the  range  of  possible  inspection  who  can  tell  what 
is  the  fact?  It  would  appear,  too,  that  Anglo-Catholics 
themselves  have  not  all  been  able  to  rest  in  a  comfortable 
certitude.  If  they  were  possessed  of  the  full  assurance 
of  faith  why  should  hundreds  of  them  submit  to  be  reor- 
dained?  They  are  provided,  to  be  sure,  with  the  plea 
that  their  submission  to  reordination  is  an  act  of  accom- 
modation to  Roman  prejudice,  and  is  designed  to  work 
toward  corporate  reunion.  But  it  is  hardly  credible  that, 
if  they  were  disturbed  by  no  doubts,  they  would  be  will- 
ing to  go  through  a  performance  which  amounts  to 
flagrant  contempt  of  the  standing  of  their  ecclesiastical 
superiors  in  the  Church  of  England.  They  ought  cer- 
tainly to  give  a  better  demonstration  of  their  faith  in  the 
Anglican  succession  before  asking  anyone  outside  of 
their  ranks  to  accept  it  as  one  of  the  historic  certitudes. 

Inability  to  give  satisfactory  proof  of  the  fact  of  an 
unbroken  succession  evidently  goes  far  toward  disprov- 
ing its  necessity.  Who  can  suppose  that  a  God  of  wisdom 
and  benevolence  would  consent  to  make  the  continued 
existence  of  the  Church  dependent  upon  a  condition  of 
such  a  character  that  nobody  can  tell  whether  it  has  been 
observed  or  not  ?  Connection  with  historical  antecedents 
is  indeed  no  matter  of  indifference.  But  the  connection 
which  has  real  worth  is  not  a  disputable  physical  one, 
but  one  rather  which  is  effected  through  a  spirit  of  love 
and  loyalty  to  all  that  is  good  and  imitable  in  the  belief 
and  practices  of  those  who  have  preceded. 

Another  objection   to  the   Anglo-Catholic  thesis  on 


ESTIMATE  409 

apostolical  succession  lies  in  the  lack  of  New  Testament 
evidence  for  any  such  thing.  Of  episcopacy  proper,  or 
the  rule  of  an  ecclesiastic  of  a  superior  order  over  a  com- 
pany of  clergy  belonging  to  a  lower  order,  the  New 
Testament  does  not  so  much  as  indicate  the  existence; 
and,  of  course,  therefore,  it  gives  no  hint  of  a  binding 
obligation  to  perpetuate  an  episcopacy  of  that  kind  as 
being  indispensable  to  a  true  Church.  The  later  books 
agree  with  the  earliest  in  the  lack  of  mention  of  anything 
having  the  semblance  of  diocesan  episcopacy.  All  the 
bishops  who  come  to  mention  seem  to  stand  in  the  same 
plane  with  presbyters.  In  the  Acts  Paul,  or  his  narrator, 
calls  the  same  officials  presbyters  in  one  instance,  and  in 
another,  bishops.1  In  his  Epistle  to  Titus  the  apostle 
directs  his  lieutenant  to  ordain  presbyters,  and  then  goes 
on  to  mention  the  characteristics  which  ought  to  distin- 
guish bishops,  just  as  if  the  two  names  denoted  for  him 
one  and  the  same  party.  Both  in  Ephesians  and  First 
Timothy  he  passes  directly  from  the  mention  of  bishops 
to  that  of  deacons,  leaving  presbyters  entirely  out  of 
account,  whereas  the  connection  strongly  demands  a  ref- 
erence to  them  unless  it  is  understood  that  they  come  to 
recognition  in  the  naming  of  bishops.  The  usage  re- 
vealed in  the  Petrine  Epistles  in  no  wise  contradicts  the 
Pauline.  The  elder  apostle  is  represented  as  addressing 
the  presbyters  in  a  way  agreeable  to  the  supposition  that 
they  stand  at  the  summit  of  local  church  authority.  The 
Johannine  literature  fails  equally  to  disclose  a  distinct 
episcopal  rank.  In  the  Apocalypse,  it  is  true,  we  have  a 
mention  of  the  angels  of  the  seven  churches  of  procon- 
sular Asia,  and  High-Church  imagination  is  very  ready 

»Chap.  xx.  17,  28. 


4io  THE  ANGLICAN  TYPE 

to  discern  in  them  the  forms  of  the  bishops  for  which  it 
makes  eager  quest.  But  a  due  consideration  of  the 
imagery  of  this  symbolical  book  will  lead  us  to  see  in  the 
angels  of  these  churches  merely  ideal  representatives  of 
the  churches  themselves,1  who  are  made  recipients  of 
the  messages  for  the  several  groups  of  Christians  simply 
in  accommodation  to  the  demands  of  picturesque  dis- 
course. This  interpretation  is  clearly  favored  by  the  fact 
that  in  every  instance  the  message  has  not  the  slightest 
reference  to  the  standing  or  history  of  an  individual  of- 
ficial, but  is  wholly  occupied  with  portraying  the  condi- 
tion and  needs  of  a  Christian  community.  So  the  bishop 
of  the  type  demanded,  the  one  suitable  to  stand  at  the 
head  of  the  succession,  is  not  disclosed  here.  No  more 
does  he  appear  in  any  other  New  Testament  quarter. 
Timothy  and  Titus,  as  special  ambassadors,  or  ministers 
extraordinary,  of  the  apostle,  do  not  answer  to  his  de- 
scription ;  and  the  James  who  figured  in  the  church  at 
Jerusalem,  as  owing  his  ascendency  to  his  personal  rela- 
tions, character,  and  essentially  apostolic  rank,  can  be 
associated  with  the  typical  bishop  only  on  the  basis  of  an 
arbitrary  selection  for  that  purpose. 

The  probable  inference  from  this  line  of  New  Testa- 
ment data  is  that  the  apostles  had  no  direct  connection 
with  the  origination  of  episcopacy  of  the  type  contem- 
plated by  the  Anglo-Catholic  theory.  In  controverting 
that  theory,  however,  it  is  not  necessary  to  insist  upon 
that  much.  It  is  enough  to  know  that  in  no  recorded 
apostolic  word  is  episcopacy,  in  the  given  sense,  declared 
obligatory,  and  that  the  attempt  to  make  it  a  necessary 

1  "The  angels  of  the  seven  churches  seem  to  be  ideal  personifications  of 
the  temper  or  genius  of  the  churches"  (Charles  Gore,  The  Church  and  the 
Ministry,  1900,  p.  233). 


ESTIMATE  411 

condition  of  the  existence  of  a  true  Church  must  be  based 
upon  something  else  than  any  ascertained  message  of  the 
apostles.  Quite  possibly  for  minds  not  over  particular  a 
supposed  message  may  answer.  The  appreciative  atti- 
tude of  the  fathers  toward  episcopacy  may  be  construed 
as  a  proof  that  the  institution  was  grounded  in  apostolic 
authority.  But  the  fathers,  as  was  noticed  above,  had  a 
practical  motive,  in  contending  against  the  forces  making 
for  schism  and  disruption,  to  exalt  the  episcopal  dignity. 
They  are  witnesses  to  us  as  to  the  actual  role  fulfilled  by 
episcopacy  in  their  respective  generations.  That  they 
were  exempt  from  the  liability  to  judge  of  earlier  times 
too  much  by  the  conditions  of  their  own,  or  had  the  neces- 
sary information  to  judge  correctly  of  the  conditions 
under  which  the  episcopal  system  originated,  we  are  by 
no  means  assured.  Nothing  like  a  demonstration  that 
episcopacy  came  by  apostolic  mandate  can  be  derived 
from  the  fathers.  With  Professor  Jowett,  there  is  good 
reason  to  say:  "We  cannot  err  in  supposing  that  those 
who  could  add  nothing  to  what  is  recorded  in  the  New 
Testament  of  the  life  of  Christ  and  his  apostles  had  no 
real  knowledge  of  lesser  matters,  as,  for  example,  the 
origin  of  episcopacy."1  This  was  said  more  specifically 
of  the  fathers  of  the  third  and  fourth  centuries,  but  will 
apply  to  those  of  the  preceding  century  who  have  given 
any  intimation  of  their  conviction  as  to  the  rise  of  an 
episcopal  constitution.  It  is  noticeable  that  the  same 
Irenaeus  who  was  inclined  to  speak  of  a  succession  of 
bishops  from  the  apostles  speaks  also  of  presbyters  as 
receiving  the  "succession  from  the  apostles."2  The 


1  The  Epistles  of  Saint  Paul,  1894,  I.  375. 
*  Cont.  Haer.,  iii.  2.  2;  iv.  26.  2. 


412  THE  ANGLICAN  TYPE 

double  form  of  statement  indicates  the  indefiniteness  of 
the  tradition  in  the  time  of  this  father. 

Good  Anglican  scholarship  has  given  a  verdict  in  line 
with  the  foregoing  conclusions.  As  judicial  and  compe- 
tent an  investigator  as  Lightfoot  has  remarked:  "It  is 
clear  that  at  the  close  of  the  apostolic  age  the  two  lower 
orders  of  the  threefold  ministry  were  firmly  and  widely 
established ;  but  traces  of  the  third  and  highest  order,  the 
episcopal,  properly  so  called,  are  few  and  indistinct.  For 
the  opinion  hazarded  by  Theodoret,  and  adopted  by  many 
later  writers,  that  the  same  officers  in  the  Church  who 
were  first  called  apostles,  came  afterward  to  be  desig- 
nated as  bishops  is  baseless."  Again,  in  terms  not  at  all 
suggestive  of  a  conviction  that  any  legislative  action  was 
taken  by  the  apostles  in  the  matter  of  episcopacy,  he  has 
declared  of  the  evidences:  "They  show  that  the  episco- 
pate was  created  out  of  the  presbytery.  They  show  that 
the  creation  was  not  so  much  an  isolated  act  as  a  progres- 
sive development,  not  advancing  everywhere  at  a  uniform 
rate,  but  exhibiting  at  one  and  the  same  time  different 
stages  of  growth  in  different  churches."1  A  like  view 
has  been  asserted  by  Dean  Stanley  as  follows:  "It  is 
certain  that  throughout  the  first  century,  and  for  the  first 
years  of  the  second,  that  is,  through  the  latest  chapters 
of  the  Acts,  the  apostolical  epistles,  and  the  writings  of 
Clement  and  Hermas,  bishop  and  presbyter  were  con- 
vertible terms,  and  that  the  body  of  men  so  called  were 
the  rulers — so  far  as  any  permanent  rulers  existed — of 
the  early  Church.  It  is  certain  that,  as  the  necessities  of 

1  First  dissertation  on  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Philippians.  It  is  noticeable 
that,  while  R.  C.  Moberly  thinks  it  necessary  to  reject  the  supposition  of 
a  proper  development  of  the  episcopate  from  the  presbyterate,  he  comes 
very  near  to  Lightfoot  in  his  conception  of  the  facts  illustrative  of  New 
Testament  polity  (Ministerial  Priesthood,  chaps,  v,  vi). 


ESTIMATE  4U 

the  time  demanded,  first  at  Jerusalem,  then  in  Asia 
Minor,  the  elevation  of  one  presbyter  above  the  rest  by 
the  almost  universal  law  which 'even  in  republics  engen- 
ders a  monarchical  element,  the  word  bishop  gradually 
changed  its  meaning,  and  by  the  middle  of  the  second 
century  became  restricted  to  the  chief  presbyter  of  the 
locality."1 

A  theory,  it  is  to  be  admitted,  which  stands  measurably 
in  contrast  with  that  of  Lightfoot  and  Stanley,  has  gained 
considerable  currency,  the  theory,  namely,  of  Harnack 
and  others  that  the  primitive  bishop,  as  being  in  particular 
the  almoner  of  the  congregation  and  the  superintendent 
of  its  worship,  was  from  the  first  distinguished  in  a 
measure  from  the  simple  presbyter.  But  even  if  this 
view  should  be  given  the  preference — and  we  are  not 
convinced  that  it  deserves  that  much — no  good  historical 
basis  for  the  Anglo-Catholic  contention  for  a  necessary 
episcopal  constitution  has  been  provided.  Almoners  and 
superintendents  of  worship,  commonly  subsisting  in  the 
plural  in  connection  with  each  local  church,  cannot  well 
be  counted  identical  in  office  with  the  representatives  of 
the  supreme  third  order,  the  diocesan  lords  who  came 
ultimately  upon  the  stage.  An  apostolic  approval  of  the 
one  would  not  involve  an  apostolic  sanction,  and  much 
less  a  perpetually  binding  apostolic  injunction,  of  the 
other. 

A  further  objection  to  the  Anglo-Catholic  theory  lies 
in  the  failure  of  the  communions  which  are  credited  with 
the  apostolical  succession  to  demonstrate  that  they  are 
the  recipients  of  a  measure  of  grace  quite  impossible  to 
those  who  are  not  in  connection  with  that  select  channel. 


1  Christian  Institutions,  1881,  p.  187. 


4i4  THE  ANGLICAN  TYPE 

It  is  not  in  the  best  taste,  perhaps,  for  either  side  to 
initiate  comparisons.  But  as  opposed  to  Anglo-Catholics, 
who  condemn  all  outside  the  lines  of  episcopal  succession, 
if  not  to  the  outer  darkness,  at  least  to  the  dimly  lighted 
region  of  the  uncovenanted  mercies  of  God,  it  is  legiti- 
mate for  the  outsiders  to  ask  for  the  proofs  that  An- 
glicans, as  such,  are  furnished  with  peculiar  grace.  In 
response  to  the  ultra  High-Church  assumption  it  is  quite 
in  order  to  say,  as  Dr.  Forsyth  said  at  the  Oxford  Con- 
ference on  Priesthood  and  Sacrifice:  "I  would  ask 
whether  the  continual  and  fertile  presence  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  in  the  long  history  of  the  non-episcopal  Churches 
is  not  a  surer  fact  than  any  exclusive  commission  from 
Christ  to  a  ministry  of  a  particular  kind."1 

A  legitimate  criticism  may  also  be  based  upon  the  fact 
that  in  upholding  their  doctrine  of  apostolical  succession 
Anglo-Catholics  have  felt  constrained  to  advocate  the 
reservoir  theory  of  grace.  But  this  theory  has  been 
utilized  by  them  in  connection  with  the  general  theme  of 
sacramental  efficacy,  and  therefore  may  properly  be  ex- 
amined in  relation  to  the  topic  immediately  to  receive  our 
attention. 

III.  In  consideration  of  the  resemblance  which  the 
Anglo-Catholic  teaching  on  the  sacraments  bears  to  the 
Roman  Catholic,  and  of  the  space  which  has  been  given 
to  the  criticism  of  the  latter,  it  will  not  be  appropriate 
to  enlarge  very  much  upon  this  part  of  our  theme.  Since, 
however,  in  the  Anglo-Catholic  system  the  doctrine  of 
the  sacraments  is  a  controlling  feature,  it  will  be  advis- 
able, even  at  the  expense  of  some  slight  repetition,  to 

1  Report  edited  by  Sanday,  1899,  p.  163. 


ESTIMATE  415 

take  at  least  a  swift  glance  at  the  points  in  the  doctrine 
which  invite  to  a  challenge. 

It  is  a  ground  of  objection,  in  the  first  place,  against 
the  Anglo-Catholic  teaching,  that  in  its  enormous  empha- 
sis upon  the  sacraments  it  utterly  fails  to  observe  the 
perspective  which  a  just  dealing  with  the  New  Testa- 
ment requires.  Most  of  the  New  Testament  books  con- 
tain not  one  solitary  sentence  on  the  effect  of  sacramental 
performances,  and  not  one  of  them  makes  of  this  matter 
a  principal  theme.  When,  therefore,  we  find  the  Oxford 
school  condemning  faith,  prayer,  and  active  spiritual  con- 
templation to  a  secondary  place,  describing  the  sacra- 
ments as  the  principal  channels  through  which  flows  the 
grace  made  available  by  the  incarnation,  and  asserting 
that  these  rites  effect  the  continuation  of  Christ's  presence 
upon  earth,  we  wonder  how  they  can  imagine  that  they 
learned  these  things  from  Christ  and  the  apostles. 
Christ  spoke  of  worshiping  the  Father  in  spirit  and  in 
truth,  with  comparative  independence  from  all  material 
accessories,  and  pictured  the  Father  as  more  willing  to 
give  the  Holy  Spirit  than  earthly  parents  are  to  give 
good  gifts  to  their  children.  The  apostles  thought  of 
true  believers  as  being  so  illuminated  and  enlivened  by 
the  Spirit  of  God,  continually  resident  in  them,  as  to  be 
habitually  filled  with  a  joyful  sense  of  sonship.  They 
thought,  furthermore,  of  Christ  as  dwelling  in  their 
hearts  in  response  to  their  faith,  and  as  being  in  them  a 
source  of  crucifixion  to  the  world,  a  spring  of  righteous- 
ness, the  power  of  an  endless  life.  No  deistic  scheme  of 
a  necessary  mediation  through  creaturely  instrumentali- 
ties dominated  their  minds.  The  apostles,  like  their 
Master,  were  possessed  with  a  consciousness  of  the  im- 


4i6  THE  ANGLICAN  TYPE 

mediacy  of  the  divine.  In  their  view  there  was  no  de- 
mand to  bring  up  Christ  from  beneath  or  down  from 
above.  They  knew  him  as  the  light  and  life  of  men,  as 
always  with  them,  as  the  principle  of  that  spiritual  energy 
in  them  which  enabled  them  to  triumph  over  all  obstacles 
and  adversaries.  To  suppose  that  men  with  that  order 
of  spiritual  sense  thought  of  the  grace  of  the  new  dispen- 
sation as  cornered  and  inclosed  and  principally  shut  up 
in  certain  physical  media  or  transactions  is  to  suppose  the 
incredible.  No  doubt  they  made  a  few  statements  which 
can  be  understood  as  paying  high  tribute  to  the  fruit  of 
sacramental  rites.  But  when  we  consider  the  informing 
tone  of  their  teaching  there  is  good  reason  to  take  these 
statements,  as  we  do  various  other  sayings  of  theirs,  as 
spoken  according  to  an  ideal  point  of  view.  There  was 
no  intention  on  their  part  to  lend  countenance  to  the 
notion  that  sacraments  have  any  efficacy  as  applied  to 
merely  passive  subjects,  or  to  indifferent  subjects,  but 
only  to  recognize  the  truth  that  where  the  subject  brings 
to  the  solemn  rite  the  suitable  disposition  there  is,  in  some 
sense,  a  concurrence  of  symbol  and  reality.  They  could 
not  in  consistency  admit  that  the  reality  was  tied  to  the 
outward  symbol  or  rite;  that  would  contradict  their  per- 
vasive representation  as  to  the  immediacy  of  divine  bene- 
fits for  true  Christian  faith.  In  consideration,  however,  of 
what  the  rite  signified  both  to  the  brotherhood  and  to  the 
individual  they  could  regard  it  as  an  eminent  occasion 
of  grace  to  the  rightly  disposed  person.  Especially  was 
it  open  to  them  to  do  this  in  connection  with  baptism, 
since  under  primitive  conditions  this  rite  was  naturally 
regarded  as  a  completing  act  in  the  appropriation  of 
Christianity,  and  therefore  could  be  included  among 


ESTIMATE  417 

things  instrumental  to  the  gracious  results  of  that  appro- 
priation, though  it  was  not  the  most  fundamental  factor 
therein,  as  must  have  been  plainly  suggested  in  cases 
where  the  Holy  Spirit  was  manifestly  operative  prior  to 
its  administration.1  In  short,  the  Anglo-Catholic  expo- 
sition of  the  sacraments  turns  what  is  accessory  and  sub- 
ordinate in  the  total  view  of  the  New  Testament  into 
a  matter  of  principal  account.  We  might  well  charge 
upon  it  the  fault  which  a  writer,  who  had  the  honorable 
distinction  to  earn  the  special  dislike  of  the  Tractarians, 
charged  against  the  sacramental  teaching  of  mediaeval 
scholasticism  in  the  following  apt  terms :  "The  simplicity 
of  Scripture  truth  has  been  altogether  abandoned,  in  the 
endeavor  to  raise  up,  on  the  solemn  ordinances  approved 
by  our  Lord,  for  the  edification,  and  charity,  and  comfort 
of  the  Church,  an  elaborate  artificial  system  of  mystical 
theurgy."2 

This  brings  us  to  a  second  general  objection  to  the 
Anglo-Catholic  doctrine  relative  to  the  sacraments.  We 
refer  to  that  ingredient  in  this  doctrine  which  may  con- 
veniently be  described  as  the  reservoir  theory  of  grace. 
The  assumption  is  that  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  an  available 
source  of  replenishment  to  believers,  is  resident  in  the 
glorified  humanity  of  Christ,  and  is  mediated  thence 
through  the  sacraments,  which  are  styled  by  one  writer 
the  veins  and  arteries  of  the  Church,  and  very  commonly 
are  characterized  as  the  preeminent  channels  for  the 
transmission  of  saving  benefits.  Now,  the  appropriate 
remark  on  this  theory  is  that  it  is  crude,  fantastic,  and 
unwarranted  in  every  item.  The  Holy  Spirit  is  not  a 

1  Acts  x.  44-48. 

-  Hampden.  The  Scholastic  Philosophy  Considered  in  Relation  to  Chris- 
tian Theology,  p.  341. 


4i8  THE  ANGLICAN  TYPE 

subject  either  ontologically  or  ethically  for  reservoir 
treatment.  He  is  not  a  static  entity  ready  for  movement 
and  capable  of  movement  only  in  response  to  propulsion 
through  certain  specified  ecclesiastical  channels.  He  is  a 
living  omnipresent  agent,  most  intimately  united  with 
and  operative  in  all  finite  being.  As  the  Spirit  of  holiness 
and  love  he  is  under  stress  to  work  illumination  and  sanc- 
tification  wherever  thought,  hope,  desire,  aspiration,  and 
faith,  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  rational  beings,  are 
turned,  or  can  be  turned,  toward  the  better  ideals.  New 
Testament  universality  and  spirituality  rebel  against  this 
narrow  and  materialistic  reservoir  conception.  It  pre- 
sumes upon  an  arbitrary  and  artificial  localization  of  the 
divine,  the  very  thing  which  most  of  all  invites  to  reproba- 
tion in  pagan  systems.  As  symbolical  rites,  setting  before 
the  contemplation  the  hallowed  truths  of  a  holy  faith, 
and  serving  an  important  end  of  the  social  element  in 
religion,  the  sacraments  are  beautiful,  seemly,  and  useful. 
Taken  artificially  as  necessary  means  of  connection  with 
a  reservoir  of  essentially  static  grace,  they  are  a  clumsy 
invention,  quite  unsuited  to  any  recognition  in  a  rational 
and  spiritual  creed. 

In  a  few  notes  on  individual  sacraments  sufficient  re- 
spect will  be  paid  to  the  teaching  of  Anglo-Catholics  re- 
garding baptism  by  recalling  a  tendency  of  that  teaching 
to  which  attention  has  already  been  directed.  By  logical 
compulsion  it  works  toward  a  cold  and  hesitating,  not 
to  say  a  despairing,  view  of  the  fate  of  the  unbaptized, 
and  especially  of  those  among  the  unbaptized  who  can 
offer  no  compensation  for  their  lack  of  the  sacrament. 
If  the  rite  is  so  tremendously  important,  so  fundamental 
in  the  divine  economy  for  bringing  human  beings  from 


ESTIMATE  419 

the  estate  of  wrath  and  corrupted  nature  into  that  of 
filial  acceptance  and  gracious  renewal,  what  basis  of 
secure  hope  is  there  for  infants  who  die  unbaptized? 
Anglo-Catholic  dogmatists,  in  truth,  are  debarred  from 
giving  expression  to  a  secure  hope.  Very  rarely,  it  may 
be,  have  they  put  on  the  iron  fetters  with  which  Rome 
binds  her  children  to  the  abhorrent  doctrine  of  the  dam- 
nation of  hapless  innocents.  But  it  is  a  potent  comment 
on  the  vicious  and  vitiating  implications  of  their  creed 
that  they  do  not  repudiate  this  dogma  with  the  resolute- 
ness and  indignation  which  it  so  richly  deserves. 

The  doctrine  of  the  eucharist  advocated  by  Pusey,  and 
so  largely  maintained  by  Anglo-Catholics  as  to  be  en- 
titled, though  not  held  by  all,  to  be  regarded  as  the  stand- 
ard doctrine  among  them,  is  exposed  to  a  great  part  of 
the  objections,  scriptural  and  rational,  which  hold  against 
the  Roman  Catholic  dogma.  It  burdens  the  Christian 
system  with  a  perfectly  gratuitous  mystery,  gratuitous 
both  in  the  sense  of  not  being  required  by  any  known 
data,  and  not  serving  any  intelligible  purpose.  No  scrip- 
tural language  makes  any  apparent  demand  for  it,  except 
the  form  of  words  employed  in  the  mystical  parable 
recorded  in  the  sixth  chapter  of  John's  Gospel;  and  this 
last  negatives  the  demand  not  only  by  features  and  ele- 
ments of  the  parable,  but  by  the  categorical  declaration, 
which  is  appended,  that  "the  flesh  profiteth  nothing."1 
What  more  comprehensive  and  decisive  formula  could 
have  been  used  for  the  purpose  of  repudiating  the  notion 
that  spiritual  sustenance  can  possibly  come  from  the 
eating  of  corporeal  substance.  It  is  urged,  to  be  sure, 
that  Christ  repelled  the  notion  of  eating  his  literal  flesh, 

*  See  part  i,  chap.  Hi,  sect,  iii 


420  THE  ANGLICAN  TYPE 

but  not  that  of  eating  his  glorified  and  heavenly  body. 
This,  however,  is  a  controversial  makeshift  that  is  in  no 
wise  concordant  with  the  text.  What  Christ  puts  in 
antithesis  to  the  "flesh"  is  not  a  body  of  any  kind  or  in 
any  state,  but  quickening,  inspiring,  life-giving  truth. 
"The  words  that  I  have  spoken  unto  you  are  spirit,  and 
are  life."  It  contradicts,  therefore,  the  expressed  out- 
come of  the  discourse  to  find  therein  any  warrant  for  the 
supposition  of  a  real  eating  of  the  body  of  Christ.  This 
concluding  statement  also  favors  the  doubt,  which  on 
other  grounds  it  is  legitimate  to  entertain,  respecting  the 
possibility  of  any  good  purpose  being  served  by  such 
eating.  What  is  there  in  a  body  of  any  kind,  gross  or 
etheric,  terrestrial  or  celestial,  that  can  minister  suste- 
nance to  the  ethico-religious  nature  of  spirit?  When  it 
comes  to  efficient  working  upon  a  subject  of  that  kind, 
who  can  think  of  anything  which  can  possibly  enter  into 
competition  with  the  absolute  source  of  life,  the  creative 
and  sustaining  Spirit  of  God?  Thus  in  a  double  sense 
it  is  a  gratuitous  mystery  which  is  loaded  upon  the  minds 
of  Christians  in  the  assumption  of  a  real  eating  of  the 
body  of  Christ  in  the  eucharist.  And  the  mystery,  too, 
is  replete  with  bewildering  enigmas.  While  one  element 
of  difficulty  included  in  the  Roman  Catholic  theory  of  the 
real  presence,  namely,  the  arbitrary  severance  of  sub- 
stance and  accidents,  is  not  involved  in  the  usual  form 
of  the  Anglo-Catholic  doctrine,  all  the  other  elements  of 
difficulty  are  common  to  the  two.  The  latter  no  less  than 
the  former  involves  an  utter  contradiction  of  all  the 
known  capabilities  of  bodies  as  respects  occupancy  of 
space,  multipresence,  and  movement.  Accordingly,  the 
one  as  well  as  the  other  gets  into  straits  which  make 


ESTIMATE  421 

virtual  self-cancellation  unavoidable.  It  asserts  a  real 
eating  of  the  body  of  Christ ;  but  in  order  to  provide  for 
the  presence  of  the  body  here  and  there  and  yonder,  and 
within  all  sorts  of  spatial  limits  down  to  the  most  in- 
finitesimal, it  is  under  compulsion  to  assert  that  the  body 
is  present  in  the  mode  of  spirit.  Now,  authentic  informa- 
tion is  wanting  as  to  the  possibility  of  body  and  spirit 
exchanging  modes.  But  even  if  this  ground  of  challenge 
could  be  evaded,  the  question  still  remains  as  to  what  is 
meant  by  the  eating  of  a  body  which  is  present  in  the 
mode  of  spirit,  and  which  cannot  be  granted  to  be  any 
the  less  truly  outside  because  it  is  presumed  at  any 
moment  to  be  inside.  "Real"  would  seem  to  be  about 
the  last  epithet  that  could  deserve  to  be  applied  to  an 
eating  of  that  sort. 

In  so  far  as  the  Anglo-Catholic  school  give  a  truly 
optional  character  to  sacramental  confession  and  absolu- 
tion, their  position  on  this  theme  is  differenced  from  that 
of  Roman  Catholics  by  a  point  of  very  considerable 
moment.  It  lies,  however,  in  the  very  logic  of  their 
estimate  of  the  worth  of  these  transactions  that  they 
should  be  beset  with  a  tendency  to  lift  them  out  of  the 
category  of  optional  matters.  Granting,  then,  whatever 
the  facts  of  history  may  require  in  relation  to  this  aspect 
of  the  subject,  we  have  to  say  that  the  prerogative  ac- 
corded by  representative  Anglo-Catholic  writers  to  the 
priest  relative  to  the  pardon  of  confessing  penitents  is  in 
desperate  need  of  rational  justification.  We  have  not 
discovered  that  these  writers  have  met  such  objections  as 
were  urged,  in  the  criticism  of  the  Roman  sacrament  of 
penance,1  against  a  substantially  identical  prerogative. 

1  Part  i,  chap,  iii,  sect.  iv. 


422  THE  ANGLICAN  TYPE 

Neither  has  it  been  made  apparent  that  they  are  able  to 
afford  suitable  guarantees  that  desirable  practical  conse- 
quences will  flow  from  the  introduction  of  the  confes- 
sional into  the  Church  of  England  and  the  allied  com- 
munions. Some  judgments  on  this  point  from  high 
official  sources  have  already  been  given.  We  make  room 
for  two  or  three  more  in  this  connection.  "The  system 
of  obligatory  confession/'  said  Bishop  Wilberforce,  "is 
one  of  the  worst  developments  of  Popery.  As  regards 
the  penitent,  it  is  a  system  of  unnatural  excitement,  a 
sort  of  spiritual  dram-drinking  fraught  with  evil  to  the 
whole  spiritual  constitution.  It  is  nothing  short  of  the 
renunciation  of  the  great  charge  of  conscience  which  God 
has  connected  with  every  man — the  substitution  of  con- 
fession to  man  for  the  opening  of  the  heart  to  God — the 
adopting  in  every  case  of  a  remedy  only  adapted  to  ex- 
treme cases  which  can  find  relief  in  no  other  way."1 
"Let  all  be  said  that  can  be  said,"  wrote  Bishop  Ellicott, 
"and  this  terrible  spiritual  fact  remains — that  the  danger 
of  the  confessor  taking  the  place  of  Christ  is  found  to  be 
in  practice  irremovable.  The  evidence  that  can  be  col- 
lected on  this  subject  is  simply  overwhelming.  Poor 
human  love  of  power  and  poor  human  trusting  in  some- 
thing other  than  Christ,  both  terribly  cooperating,  bear 
their  daily  witness  to  this  appalling  form  of  spiritual 
peril."2  From  the  bishop  of  Gibraltar  came  this  assur- 
ance: "Englishmen  are  a  reserved,  proud,  independent, 
self-reliant,  and  manly  people,  and  to  these  qualities  we 
owe  our  national  greatness.  They  will  never  again  sub- 
mit to  a  system  which  requires  themselves,  their  wives, 


1  Cited  by  Clarke,  The  Confessional  in  the  Church  of  England,  p.  73. 
*  Some  Present  Dangers  of  the  Church  of  England,  p.  55. 


ESTIMATE  423 

and  daughters  to  tell  into  the  ears  of  man  their  most 
secret  sins,  and  the  most  sacred  confidences  of  their  per- 
sonal and  their  domestic  lives.  They  will  never  again 
bow  their  necks  beneath  a  yoke  which  their  forefathers 
found  to  be  intolerable."1 

The  episcopal  verdicts  do  not  seem  to  us  to  be  over- 
drawn. It  is  justly  chargeable  against  the  confessional 
that  it  fosters  a  mechanical  dealing  with  sin,  tends  to 
make  the  moral  record  a  matter  of  an  earthly  courtroom, 
and  generates  inevitably  a  miseducating  mixture  of  legal- 
ism  and  laxity.  But  the  objection  to  the  confessional 
which  overshadows  all  others  in  our  contemplation  is  the 
element  of  mockery  which  it  sanctions,  the  travesty  of 
truth  and  sanity  which  it  perpetrates  in  assuming  to 
clothe  an  ignorant  and  fallible  mortal  with  the  preroga- 
tives which  in  the  nature  of  the  case  belong  to  a  holy  and 
omniscient  God.2 

IV.  In  criticising  the  attitude  of  Anglo-Catholics 
toward  Protestantism  and  Romanism  respectively  ac- 
count needs  to  be  made  of  some  diversities  in  their  posi- 
tion. It  is  keeping  quite  within  the  limits,  however,  to 
say  that  the  party,  viewed  in  its  aggregate  record,  has 
shown  a  marked  tendency  to  slur  Protestantism  and  to 
treat  Romanism  as  worthy  of  praise  and  imitation. 
Now,  of  course,  it  has  not  been  incumbent  on  Anglo- 
Catholics  to  idealize  the  Reformers,  or  their  work,  or 
the  results  of  their  work.  No  Protestant  apologist  has 
occasion  to  attempt  that  much.  It  is  enough  for  him  to 
show  that  the  Reformation,  by  striking  off  the  fetters 
of  a  pretentious  infallibility  which  bound  the  Christian 

1  Clarke,  p.  67  "See  pages  266-268. 


424  THE  ANGLICAN  TYPE 

religion  to  the  imperfect  and  corrupted  form  of  the  mid- 
dle ages,  provided  for  that  religion  thoroughly  indispen- 
sable opportunities  for  the  progressive  realization  of  its 
true  character  and  purpose  in  the  world.  Grant  that 
some  mistakes  were  made  and  that  some  aberrations  got 
started ;  under  the  system  of  freedom  which  the  Reforma- 
tion inaugurated,  or  which  at  least  was  so  plainly  the 
logical  implication  of  its  principles  that  it  must  result 
sooner  or  later,  there  was  a  possibility  of  rectification; 
whereas  under  the  scheme  of  an  imperious  hierarchy, 
claiming  infallibly  to  represent  God  in  the  world,  and 
commanding,  under  the  heaviest  pains  imaginable,  the 
service  of  a  temporal  sword,  chance  either  to  retreat  or 
to  advance  to  a  normal  interpretation  and  practice  of 
Christianity  was  absolutely  debarred.  To  break  through 
the  gigantic  barriers  the  tremendous  crisis  was  requisite ; 
for  a  self-deified  hierarchy  was  never  known  to  give  way 
except  under  compulsion.  This  was  the  immortal  merit 
of  the  Reformation,  this  breaking  through  of  barriers 
and  purchase  of  opportunities.  It  argues,  therefore,  a 
peculiar  eclipse  of  historical  vision  when  those  who  are 
in  the  line  of  succession  from  the  martyrs  and  heroes  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  and  who  owe  a  great  part  of  their 
goodly  inheritance  to  the  work  achieved  in  Europe  by 
these  stalwart  spirits,  think  it  behooves  them  to  refer  to 
the  Reformation  in  terms  of  disparagement  or  even  of 
contempt  and  denunciation. 

The  unfairness  with  which  the  more  intemperate 
Anglo-Catholics  treat  the  claims  of  Protestantism  is 
illustrated  in  the  sweeping  assertion  of  its  responsibility 
for  all  unbelief,  heresy,  and  extravagant  freethinking  of 
the  modern  era.  It  seems  to  have  passed  out  of  their 


ESTIMATE  425 

recollection  that  the  circle  of  culture  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  papal  throne,  the  Italian  Humanism,  was  honey- 
combed with  skepticism  on  the  eve  of  the  Reformation. 
Equally  is  it  hidden  from  their  contemplation  that  the 
France  which  had  been  made  unitedly  Catholic  by  the 
extirpation  and  banishment  of  the  Huguenots  grew 
speedily  that  harvest  of  fierce  and  unsparing  infidelity 
which  was  one  of  the  chief  aspects  of  terror  in  the  French 
Revolution.  No  more  does  their  outlook  take  in  the  wide 
domain  which  at  this  day  reaction  from  priestly  rule  and 
ambition  devotes  to  indifference  and  skepticism  in  lead- 
ing Roman  Catholic  countries.  When  their  vision  clears 
they  will  see,  not  only  that  Protestantism  is  not  responsi- 
ble for  all  modern  outbreaks  of  the  spirit  of  infidelity, 
but  also  that  it  is  a  great  bulwark  against  anarchistic 
violence  in  theory  and  practice,  a  means  of  security  from 
which  the  sacerdotal  Churches  profit  immensely.  Throw 
down  this  bulwark  and  the  floods  will  smite  against 
those  Churches  as  they  do  not  and  cannot  under  existing 
conditions.  For  the  attitude  of  the  greater  Protestant 
communions  toward  them  is  moderation  and  friendship 
itself  compared  with  the  attitude  that  would  be  taken  by 
the  great  and  growing  multitudes  which,  but  for  these 
communions,  would  be  unloosed  from  ecclesiastical  bonds 
and  religious  restraints  alike,  and  left  free  to  mass  their 
antipathies  against  sacerdotal  institutions. 

A  second  illustration  of  a  capital  unfairness  might  be 
drawn  from  the  style  in  which  Anglo-Catholics  have 
sometimes  commented  on  the  Protestant  doctrine  of 
justification  by  faith.  Exception  may  doubtless  be  taken 
to  one  or  another  representation  in  which  this  or  that 
advocate  of  the  doctrine  has  indulged.  Luther's  rhetoric- 


426  THE  ANGLICAN  TYPE 

al  extravagance  naturally  betrayed  him  into  the  utterance 
of  sentences  which,  taken  in  an  isolated  fashion,  place 
him  in  a  bad  light.  His  meaning,  however,  in  case  one 
has  the  candor  to  attempt  to  understand  him,  will  general- 
ly be  found  within  the  pale  of  tolerance.  It  is  noticeable 
that  Newman  confessed  to  a  strain  of  fellow-feeling  with 
him  in  connection  with  the  notorious  pccca  fortiter  propo- 
sition, one  of  the  most  obnoxious  statements,  in  its  verbal 
sound,  that  the  fiery  Wittenberger  ever  uttered.  Re- 
ferring to  the  casuistical  shift  by  which  the  Roman  expert 
has  sought,  under  the  name  of  allowable  amphibology  or 
equivocation,  to  secure  for  lying  the  credit  of  truth- 
telling,  he  remarked :  "I  can  fancy  myself  thinking  it 
was  allowable  in  extreme  cases  for  me  to  lie,  but  never  to 
equivocate.  Luther  said,  Pecca  fortiter.  I  anathematize 
his  formal  sentiment,  but  there  is  truth  in  it  when 
spoken  of  material  acts."1  Had  the  Reformer  toned 
down  his  overrobust  way  of  putting  things,  he  would 
have  afforded  less  of  a  handle  to  his  enemies.  But  he  was 
not  far  from  the  heart  of  the  gospel  in  the  essential  tenor 
of  his  teaching  on  justification  and  good  works.  To 
works  done  in  conformity  to  gospel  precepts  he  had  no 
intention  to  attach  a  slighting  estimate.  Witness  his 
emphatic  words:  "Apart  from  the  cause  of  justification, 
no  one  can  commend  good  works  prescribed  by  God  in 
a  sufficiently  lofty  strain.  Who  indeed  can  proclaim 
sufficiently  the  utility  and  fruit  of  one  work  which  a 
Christian  does  from  faith  and  in  faith  ?  It  is  more  precious 
than  heaven  and  earth."2  What  Luther  reprobated  was 
the  foolishness  of  the  person  who,  in  his  sore  need  of 


1  Apologia,  Appendix  G,  p.  360. 

*  Comm.  in  Epist.  ad  Galat.,  cap.  iii. 


ESTIMATE  427 

justification,  brings  his  performances  into  the  presence 
of  God  and  rests  upon  them  as  a  means  of  purchasing 
the  divine  favor.  In  such  relation,  he  taught,  the  only 
fitting  thing  to  do  is  to  cast  oneself  upon  the  grace  of  God 
in  Christ,  get  the  paternal  response  in  the  heart,  and 
then  work  under  the  impulsion  of  gratitude  and  love. 
Viewed  as  to  its  essential  import,  stress  upon  justification 
by  faith,  as  imposed  by  Luther  and  by  Protestantism 
generally,  was  only  another  name  for  emphasis  upon  the 
great  cardinal  truth  that  Christianity  is  the  religion  of 
sonship,  the  religion  in  which  the  inner  disposition,  the 
spirit  of  filial  confidence  and  love,  has  the  primacy,  not  as 
being  antithetic  to  outward  performances,  but  as  being 
the  logical  antecedent  and  the  efficient  spring  of  per- 
formances characterized  by  true  worth.  This  truth  is  the 
real  core  of  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith.  Had 
Anglo-Catholics  looked  into  the  subject  more  sympathet- 
ically and  deeply  they  could  never  have  felt  at  liberty  to 
pass  such  judgments  as  at  least  individuals  among  them 
have  expressed. 

As  respects  the  Romeward  leanings  of  Anglo-Catho- 
lics, we  pass  by  the  basis  of  comment  afforded  by  their 
appropriation  of  various  phases  of  Roman  belief  and 
practice  which  have  no  foundation  in  the  New  Testament, 
and  simply  remark  upon  an  incongruity  which  is  charge- 
able upon  a  great  proportion  of  them.  The  incongruity 
is  of  the  most  glaring  description.  Who,  in  fact,  can 
imagine  anything  more  ridiculously  incongruous  than 
an  attitude  of  semi-obeisance  to  Rome  on  the  part  of 
those  who  do  not  give  in  to  the  claims  of  Rome  by  an 
act  of  surrender  to  her  authority?  Those  claims  are  of 
tremendous  consequence.  No  one  who  accepts  what  they 


438  THE  ANGLICAN  TYPE 

assert  can  use  his  Bible  at  first  hand.  He  must  see  it  in 
the  light  of  the  interpretation  which  the  Roman  pontiff 
places  upon  it.  In  all  questions  of  faith  and  morals  he 
must  count  his  power  of  rational  induction  as  naught 
over  against  pontifical  decisions.  Even  in  matters  of 
less  consequence  he  is  under  bonds  to  yield  obedience, 
ever  keeping  in  mind  the  ex  cathedra  declaration,  that  to 
be  subject  to  the  Roman  pontiff  is  altogether  necessary 
to  salvation.  Now,  these  claims,  which  make  the  very 
corner  stone  of  the  Roman  system,  are  either  true  or 
false.  If  they  are  false  they  are  a  stupendous  falsehood, 
and  so  vitiate  the  system  to  which  they  are  fundamental 
as  to  necessitate  a  decided  recoil  against  it  in  any  healthy 
mind  that  is  convinced  of  their  falsity.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  they  are  true  they  are  a  truth  of  tremendous  con- 
sequence. True  or  false  they  must  be;  for  infallibility 
and  indivisible  sovereignty  are  not  subject  to  any  process 
of  reduction  or  compromise.  Let,  then,  the  Anglo- 
Catholic  pay  a  decent  respect  to  the  demands  of  con- 
gruity,  and  learn  practically  to  treat  the  most  exacting 
claims  ever  made  for  an  earthly  official  as  either  true  or 
false. 

In  its  Romeward  relation  the  Anglo-Catholic  move- 
ment scarcely  falls  short  of  being  a  reductio  ad  absurdum. 
At  one  end  it  is  precisely  that.  It  does  not  follow,  how- 
ever, on  this  account  that  the  movement  will  be  con- 
demned to  a  speedy  collapse.  Sacerdotal  assumption, 
when  once  it  gets  thoroughly  ingrained  into  a  company 
of  men,  is  one  of  the  most  desperately  tenacious  things 
known  to  human  society.  Among  those  who  have  re- 
ceived it  by  inheritance  and  training  only  the  larger  and 
more  generous  spirits  can  be  expected  ever  to  cast  off  its 


ESTIMATE  429 

dominion.  To  the  whole  mass  of  mediocre  clerics,  in 
whose  minds  it  has  found  lodgment,  it  must  so  commend 
itself  as  the  indispensable  basis  of  their  own  importance 
that  it  would  require  almost  a  miracle  of  grace  for  them 
to  escape  the  persuasion  that  it  is  ordained  of  God  and 
necessary  for  the  Church.  To  surrender  their  sacerdotal 
badge  must  seem  to  them  a  woeful  sacrifice,  since  in  that 
event  they  would  become  as  other  men  and  even  as  these 
poor  Protestant  pastors.  If,  then,  the  Anglo-Catholic 
movement  is  to  be  brought  to  a  halt  and  turned  back,  it 
will  be  through  the  operation  of  exceedingly  potent  forces. 
Let  it  be  hoped  that  historical  and  philosophical  studies 
will  exercise  a  leavening  influence,  that  men  of  the  larger 
mold  will  come  to  the  front,  that  tendencies  to  an  ultra 
sacramentalism  and  ecclesiasticism  will  be  toned  down, 
and  that,  accordingly,  the  successors  of  the  Anglo-Catho- 
lics of  the  past  generations  will  combine  with  others  to 
realize  the  splendid  possibilities  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. Surely  a  vastly  better  fate  is  to  be  coveted  for  this 
historic  Church  than  to  be  made  an  auxiliary  to  that  over- 
grown system  of  sacerdotalism  which,  having  passed 
the  limits  of  sanity  in  its  pretensions,  necessarily  places 
the  sacred  interests  of  freedom  and  rational  religion  under 
compulsion  to  enter  into  conflict  with  itself. 


CHAPTER  III 

LESS   IMPORTANT   DEVELOPMENTS   OF   SACER- 
DOTALISM 

I. — THE  STANDPOINT  OF  THE  MORE  RADICAL  NEO- 

LUTHERANS 

THE  reference  here  is  to  the  party  which  represented 
what  might  be  called  High-Church  Lutheranism  in  the 
period  of  reaction  which  followed  the  revolutionary  move- 
ments of  1848.  In  this  party  as  a  whole  churchly  feeling 
was  at  a  high  level.  Though  differing  from  Tractarianism 
in  its  attitude  toward  the  theory  of  apostolical  succession 
and  the  notion  of  state  control,  it  was  largely  imbued 
with  the  maxims  which  were  characteristic  of  the  Oxford 
movement.  Such  pronounced  and  energetic  representa- 
tives as  Kliefoth  and  Vilmar  were  scarcely  outdone  by 
the  most  stalwart  of  the  Tractarians  in  their  emphasis 
upon  the  Church  as  a  visible  institution  and  channel  of 
divine  grace.  Speaking  of  the  line  of  thought  advocated 
by  the  former  in  his  work  on  the  Church,1  an  historical 
critic  remarks :  "There  is  so  little  question  in  the  whole 
of  this  system  of  the  personal  relationship  of  the  soul 
with  Christ,  that  at  moments  it  seems  as  if,  in  order  to  be 
saved,  it  suffices  to  be  put  into  contact  with  the  establish- 
ment in  which  the  Holy  Spirit  dwells,  and  in  which  the 
Spirit  acts  by  means  of  the  sacraments."2  As  is  implied 
in  the  citation,  extraordinary  value  is  attached  by  Klie- 

1  Acht  Bucher  von  der  Kirche,  1854. 

»  Lichtenberger,  History  of  German  Theology  in  the  Nineteenth  Century, 
1889,  p.  438. 

430 


NEO-LUTHERAN  THEORIES  431 

foth  to  the  sacraments,  as  being  objective  instrumen- 
talities for  the  impartation  of  divine  benefits,  instrumen- 
talities relatively  unhampered  by  subjective  conditions. 
"The  sacrament,"  he  says,  "has  always  been  the  refuge 
and  the  rock  of  the  true  and  divine  objectivity  of  the 
Church."1  The  like  sentiment  is  expressed  by  Vilmar. 
"The  sacrament,"  he  remarks,  "is  much  more  exclusively 
than  the  word  God's  own  deed.  Furthermore,  the  word 
works  through  the  Spirit  from  above  upon  man;  the 
sacrament,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  corporal  act  of  God 
upon  man,  and  works  from  below  though  the  corporeity 
upon  the  entire  personality  of  man  for  the  redemption  of 
spirit  and  body."2 

It  was  quite  in  accord  with  the  primacy  given  by  these 
men  to  objective  ecclesiastical  agencies  that  they  should 
set  a  high  value  upon  the  practice  of  individual  confes- 
sion and  absolution.  This  was  notably  the  case  with 
Kliefoth.  He  deplored  the  well-nigh  total  disappearance, 
among  Lutherans,  of  the  practice  in  question,  and  the 
substitution  of  the  comparatively  unmeaning  performance 
of  a  public  general  confession  and  absolution.  While 
he  was  so  far  true  to  the  Lutheran  tradition  as  not  to 
advocate  a  compulsory  private  confession,  or  to  insist 
upon  a  detailed  enumeration  of  sins  by  the  penitent,  he 
did  urge  the  desirability  of  a  general  custom  of  private 
confession.  Moreover,  he  accredited  to  the  absolution 
of  the  minister  a  very  positive  virtue.  He  denied,  it  is 
true,  that  the  minister  acts  as  judge  in  the  confessional, 
and  claimed  that  he  serves  merely  as  an  instrument  in 
passing  over  to  the  penitent  the  divine  sentence  of  pardon. 

1  Cited  by  Pfleiderer,  Die  Entwickelung  der  Protestantischen  Theologie 
in  Deutschland  seit  Kant,  1891,  pp.  170-172. 

2  Pfleiderer,  pp.  173,  174. 


432  LESS  IMPORTANT  TYPES 

But  at  the  same  time  he  contended  that  the  absolving 
sentence  is  not,  as  Peter  Lombard  rated  it,  merely  declar- 
atory ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  effective,  a  means  of  actually 
imparting  a  divine  benefit.1  Accordingly,  in  spite  of  his 
qualifying  clauses,  he  appropriated  a  central  factor  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  doctrine  of  the  sacrament  of 
penance,  and  wrought  for  the  installation  of  a  sacer- 
dotal principle  in  the  interpretation  of  ministerial  func- 
tions. 

The  high-church  propagandism  of  Kliefoth,  Vilmar, 
and  other  Neo-Lutherans  seems  not  to  have  been  very 
effectual.  The  permanent  results  were  too  inconsiderable 
to  figure  conspicuously  in  the  records  of  nineteenth  cen- 
tury sacerdotalism. 

In  the  United  States  a  type  of  doctrine  akin  to  that 
just  described  in  its  magnifying  of  the  function  of  the 
Church  and  the  sacraments,  in  its  stress  upon  ministerial 
prerogatives,  and  in  its  valuation  of  the  use  of  private 
confession  and  absolution,  was  represented  by  J.  A.  A. 
Grabau,  the  founder  of  one  of  the  smaller  Lutheran 
bodies,  called  the  Buffalo  Synod.2 


II. — IRVINGITE  THEORIES 

Following  out  the  incentive  which  came  to  them  from 
the  conviction  that  the  peculiar  manifestations  which  at- 
tended the  ministry  of  Edward  Irving  in  the  years  im- 
mediately preceding  his  death,  near  the  end  of  1834, 
were  nothing  less  than  a  renewal  of  the  gift  of  tongues, 

1  Liturgische  Abhandlungen.  Band  II,  Die  Beichte  und  Absolution. 

3  Neve,  A  Brief  History  of  the  Lutheran  Church  in  America,  1904,  pp.  in, 


IRVINGITE  THEORIES  433 

the  disciples  of  the  eloquent  preacher  took  up  the  scheme 
of  reproducing  the  apostolic  model  so  vividly  called  to 
mind  by  the  supposed  return  of  the  primitive  charism. 
They  believed  that  model  to  be  the  obligatory  pattern  for 
church  constitution  and  administration  to  the  end  of  time. 
As  appears  in  the  manifesto  which  they  addressed  to  the 
Christian  world,  they  argued :  "The  Church  is  what  it  is 
by  God's  ordination  and  constitution  for  the  accomplish- 
ment of  a  specific  end  and  purpose,  and  is  adapted  in  all 
the  completeness  of  its  parts  to  that  end.  If,  therefore, 
God's  purpose  is  to  be  accomplished,  the  Church  cannot 
be  different  from,  or  other  than,  that  which  he  constituted 
it;  and  if  at  any  time  it  have  deviated  from  its  original 
constitution,  if  the  instrumentality  ordained  of  God  be 
in  any  of  its  parts  deficient,  that  deviation  must  be  over- 
ruled and  corrected  and  that  which  has  become  defective 
must  be  restored."1  In  the  plan  of  the  "Catholic  Apos- 
tolic Church,"  as  the  Irvingites  called  their  new  organiza- 
tion, they  attempted  to  fulfill  the  task  of  restoration. 
Within  this  plan  great  prominence  was  given  to  the  four- 
fold ministry,  which  was  conceived  to  be  distinctly  set 
forth  in  the  New  Testament  and  especially  in  the  writings 
of  Paul.  "There  were  to  be,  first,  apostles,  who  should 
regulate  and  order  the  affairs  of  the  Church.  They  were 
to  be  directly  appointed  from  above — 'neither  of  man  nor 
by  man' — and  are  supposed  to  have  the  power  of  ap- 
pointing all  the  other  ministers  in  God's  Church.  Next 
come  prophets,  who  are  inspired  directly  from  heaven, 
but  are  appointed  and  ordained  by  the  apostles.  In  all 
ordinations  the  call  is  made  by  the  prophet,  the  appoint- 

1  The  Great  Testimony.  This  document  is  given  as  an  appendix  to 
Vol.  I  of  Edward  Miller's  History  and  Doctrines  of  Irvingism,  or  the  so- 
called  Catholic  Apostolic  Church. 


434  LESS  IMPORTANT  TYPES 

ment  by  imposition  of  hands  is  conferred  by  the  apostle. 
Third  in  order  are  evangelists,  whose  duty  is  to  bring 
the  glad  tidings  of  salvation  to  those  who  are  outside  of 
the  Church.  Lastly  come  pastors,  who  are  employed  in 
taking  care  of  the  souls  of  those  who  are  in  full  com- 
munion with  the  body;  so  that  when  the  evangelist  has 
sufficiently  instructed  anyone  who  requires  information, 
he  hands  his  disciple  over  to  the  pastor  for  further  atten- 
tion and  care.  The  Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  declared  to 
be  the  sole  great  apostle,  prophet,  evangelist,  and  pastor, 
who  ruled  his  Church  through  the  first  order,  enlightened 
it  through  the  second,  educated  those  who  needed  edu- 
cation by  means  of  evangelists,  and  watched  for  their 
souls  through  his  pastors."1 

Besides  these  four  divisions  of  the  ministry,  distin- 
guished each  by  its  special  functions,  the  Irvingites  made 
room  for  distinctions  of  "order"  under  the  titles  angels 
or  bishops,  priests,  and  deacons.  The  latter  list  was 
understood  to  specify  ranks,  not  outside  of  the  four  divi- 
sions, but  within  any  one  of  them,  except  the  apostolate 
which  represented  at  once  the  supreme  order  and  the 
supreme  division  of  the  fourfold  ministry.  Thus  from 
the  Irvingite  point  of  view  it  was  quite  appropriate  to 
distinguish  evangelists  as  angel-evangelists,  priest-evan- 
gelists, and  deacon-evangelists.  In  fact,  these  compound 
titles  came  into  use. 

Great  importance  was  attached  in  this  ideal  of  church 
polity  to  the  apostolate.  It  was  regarded  as  a  necessary 
basis  of  ecclesiastical  unity  throughout  Christendom,  a 
warrantable  ground  for  an  all-comprehending  administra- 
tion, whereas  the  monarchical  power  asserted  for  the 

1  Miller,  History  and  Doctrines  of  Irvingism,  I.  204,  205. 


IRVINGITE  THEORIES  435 

Roman  bishop  was  of  the  nature  of  a  usurpation. 
Further,  it  was  given  a  large  significance  in  connection 
with  the  millennarian  theories,  which  were  current  among 
the  Irvingites  it  being  assumed  that  the  apostles  were 
the  proper  agents  for  sealing  the  hundred  and  forty-four 
thousand,  and  that  in  fulfilling  this  office  they  would  pre- 
pare for  the  immediate  advent  of  Christ.  Above  all,  the 
apostolate  was  given  a  preeminence  as  an  instrument  or 
channel  of  divine  grace.  "While  every  ministry,"  we  are 
told,  "is  a  ministry  of  life,  the  apostolic  ministry  is  a 
ministration  of  the  Spirit  of  Life  immediately  from  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  thus  becomes  the  source  of 
strength  of  every  other  ministry.  It  is  the  ordinance  for 
bestowing  the  Holy  Ghost,  whose  gifts  are  to  be  exercised 
by  all  ministers,  yea,  by  all  the  baptized."1 

In  making  room  for  ^prophets  authorized  to  speak  in 
the  name  of  the  Lord,  as  well  as  for  apostles  qualified  to 
rule  as  agents  of  divine  authority,  Irvingism  attempted 
a  combination  of  prophetical  and  priestly  theocracy. 
There  was  a  chance  under  the  conditions  for  a  conflict 
of  jurisdiction.  In  fact,  something  of  the  sort  occurred, 
with  the  result  that  the  subordination  of  the  office  of 
prophet  to  that  of  apostle  was  emphasized. 

In  the  ordering  of  ecclesiastical  vestments  and  in  the 
compiling  of  their  liturgy  the  officials  of  the  Catholic 
Apostolic  Church  were  quite  free  to  take  suggestions 
from  the  older  sacerdotal  Churches.  As  respects  sacra- 
mental teaching  they  adopted  a  platform  closely  re- 
sembling that  of  the  Tractarians.  It  is  possible  that  in 
this  matter  they  were  influenced  by  the  Tracts  for  the 
Times  and  the  related  writings,  since  the  development 

>  The  Great  Testimony. 


436  LESS  IMPORTANT  TYPES 

of  their  system  was  contemporary  with  the  early  stages 
of  the  Oxford  movement.  At  any  rate,  the  Irvingites 
came  to  advocate  a  rather  emphatic  type  of  sacramental- 
ism.  They  were  not  content  to  regard  the  sacraments 
merely  as  symbolical  or  commemorative  rites,  but  main- 
tained that  "they  are  present  actings  of  Christ  in  the 
midst  of  his  people,  and  so  operate  that  which  they  ex- 
press."1 Relative  to  baptism  they  affirmed,  "God  doth 
use  the  element  of  water,  for  the  washing  away  of  sins, 
and  for  saving  us  by  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ. 
It  is  the  washing  of  regeneration."2  In  their  interpreta- 
tion of  the  eucharist  they  gave  expression  to  the  doctrine 
of  the  real  presence.  It  does  not  appear,  however,  that 
they  distinguished  closely  between  a  virtual  presence 
of  Christ's  body,  or  a  presence  by  efficacy,  and  an 
actual  local  subsistence  of  that  body  within  the  area 
of  the  consecrated  elements.  In  other  words,  they 
fell  short  of  an  unequivocal  declaration  of  an  objective 
presence  in  the  Puseyite  sense.3  They  seem  also  to 
have  been  outstripped  by  the  Anglo-Catholics,  at  least 
by  the  more  zealous  of  them,  as  respects  ambition 
to  introduce  the  confessional.  Though  they  recognize 
private  confession,  it  is  not  customarily  practiced  among 
them. 

The  review  indicates  that  in  point  of  theory  Irvingism 
represents  a  sufficiently  pronounced  sacerdotal  system. 
Its  exponents,  however,  have  generally  eschewed  a  bel- 
ligerent temper,  and  have  not  been  conspicuous  for  a 
proselytizing  ambition.  In  comparison  with  the  exalted 
mission  supposed  to  pertain  to  the  Catholic  Apostolic 


1  The  Great  Testimony.  »  Ibid. 

»  Compare  Miller,  History  and  Doctrines  of  Irvingism,  II.  69,  70. 


MORMON    THEORIES  437 

Church  their  demeanor  has  been  distinguished  to  a  nota- 
ble extent  by  modesty. 


III. — MORMON  THEORIES 

Though  built  upon  as  transparent  a  fable  as  ever 
deceived  an  ignorant  and  uncritical  people,  or  attracted 
a  set  of  adventurers,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Latter- 
day  Saints  yields  the  palm  to  no  rival  in  respect  of  sacer- 
dotal assumption.  It  claims  to  have  the  one  true  priest- 
hood upon  earth,  so  as  not  to  be  chargeable  with  violating 
truth  and  sobriety  when  it  speaks  of  all  outside  com- 
munions, of  whatever  name  or  distinction,  as  "Gentiles" 
and  "sectarians."  This  priesthood  is  armed  in  the  full 
sense  with  theocratic  sovereignty.  Its  primary  head, 
Joseph  Smith  (1805-1844),  repeatedly  exercised  the 
prerogative  to  publish  revelations  by  divine  authority. 
His  successors  in  the  Mormon  presidency,  whatever  their 
discretion  may  have  dictated  about  a  formal  use  of  direct 
revelations,  have  by  no  means  renounced  the  right  to  lay 
a  binding  message  from  the  Almighty  upon  men.  A 
recent  book,  published  under  official  sanction,  thus  defines 
the  powers  which  obtain  at  the  summit  of  the  Mormon 
hierarchy :  "The  first  presidency  constitutes  the  presiding 
quorum  of  the  Church.  By  divine  direction  a  president 
is  appointed  from  among  the  members  of  the  high-priest- 
hood to  preside  over  the  entire  Church.  He  is  known  as 
president  of  the  high-priesthood  of  the  Church,  or  presid- 
ing high  priest  over  the  high-priesthood  of  the  Church. 
He  is  called  to  be  a  seer,  a  revelator,  a  translator,  and  a 
prophet,  having  all  the  gifts  of  God  which  he  bestows 
upon  the  Church.  His  station  is  compared  by  the  Lord 


438  LESS  IMPORTANT  TYPES 

to  that  of  Moses  of  old,  who  stood  as  the  mouthpiece  of 
God  unto  Israel."1  Terms  equally  emphatic  respecting 
the  high  powers  of  the  president,  or  of  the  priesthood  as  a 
whole,  abound  in  Mormon  literature.  In  the  authorita- 
tive book  of  Doctrine  and  Covenants  we  read:  "The 
power  and  authority  of  the  higher  or  Melchizedek  priest- 
hood is  to  hold  the  keys  of  all  the  spiritual  blessings  of 
the  Church — to  have  the  privilege  of  receiving  the  myster- 
ies of  the  kingdom  of  heaven — to  have  the  heavens  opened 
unto  them — to  commune  with  the  general  assembly  and 
Church  of  the  firstborn,  and  to  enjoy  the  communion 
and  presence  of  God  the  Father  and  Jesus  the  Mediator 
of  the  new  covenant."2  "The  priesthood,"  wrote  Parley 
P.  Pratt,  "including  that  of  the  Aaronic,  holds  the  keys 
of  the  revelation  of  the  oracles  of  God  upon  the  earth; 
the  power  and  the  right  to  give  laws  and  commandments 
to  individuals,  churches,  rulers,  nations,  and  the  world; 
to  appoint,  ordain,  and  establish  constitutions  and  king- 
doms; to  appoint  kings,  presidents,  governors,  or  judges, 
and  to  ordain  and  anoint  them  to  their  several  holy  call- 
ings, also  to  instruct,  warn,  and  reprove  them  by  the 
word  of  the  Lord.  It  also  holds  the  keys  of  the  adminis- 
tration of  ordinances  for  the  remission  of  sins,  and  for 
the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit ;  to  heal  the  sick,  to  cast  out 
demons,  or  work  miracles  in  the  name  of  the  Lord;  in 


1  J.  E.  Talmage.  The  Articles  of  Faith,  1899,  p.  2rj.     Respecting  the 
higher  or  Melchizedek  priesthood,  Talmage  says:  "This  priesthood  holds 
the  right  of  presidency  in  all  the  offices  of  the  Church;  its  special  functions 
lie  in  the  administration  of  spiritual  things.  .  .  .  The  special  offices  of  the 
Melchizedek  priesthood  are  those  of  apostle,  patriarch,  or  evangelist,  high 
priest,  seventy,  and  elder"  (p.  209).     Of  the  lower  or  Aaronic  priesthood, 
the  same  writer  says:  "This  priesthood  holds  the  keys  of  the  ministering 
angels,  and  the  authority  to  attend  to  the  outward  ordinances,  the  letter 
of  the  gospel;  it  comprises  the  offices  of  deacon,  teacher,  and  priest,  with 
the  bishopric  holding  the  keys  of  presidency"  (p.  208). 

2  Doctrine  and  Covenants,  cvii.  18,  19. 


MORMON  THEORIES  439 

fine,  to  bind  or  loose  on  earth  and  in  heaven."1  "The 
bishops,"  declared  Heber  C.  Kimball,  "are  our  fathers, 
our  governors,  and  we  are  their  household;  they  are 
potters  to  mold  you,  and  when  you  are  sent  forth  to  the 
nations  of  the  earth  you  go  to  gather  the  clay,  and  bring 
it  here  to  the  great  potter,  to  be  ground  and  molded  until 
it  becomes  passive,  and  then  to  be  taken  and  formed  into 
vessels,  according  to  the  dictation  of  the  presiding  potter. 
I  have  to  do  the  work  he  tells  me  to  do,  and  you  have  to 
do  the  same ;  and  he  has  to  do  the  work  told  him  by  the 
great  master  potter  in  heaven  and  on  earth.  If  brother 
Brigham  tells  me  to  do  a  thing,  it  is  the  same  as  though 
the  Lord  told  me  to  do  it.  This  is  the  course  for  you 
and  every  other  Saint  to  take."2  The  following  words 
of  Wilford  Woodruff  are  quite  in  line:  "Whatever  I 
might  have  obtained  in  the  shape  of  learning  by  searching 
and  study  respecting  the  arts  and  the  sciences  of  men. 
whatever  principles  I  may  have  imbibed  during  my  scien- 
tific researches,  yet  if  the  prophet  of  God  should  tell  me 
that  a  certain  theory  or  principle  which  I  might  have 
learned  was  not  true,  I  do  not  care  what  my  ideas  might 
have  been,  I  should  consider  it  my  duty  at  the  suggestion 
of  my  file  leader  to  abandon  that  principle  or  theory. 
Supposing  he  were  to  say,  the  principles  by  which  you 
are  governed  are  not  right — that  they  were  incorrect, 
what  would  be  my  duty?  I  answer  that  it  would  be  my 
duty  to  lay  those  principles  aside,  and  to  take  up  those 
that  might  be  laid  down  by  the  servants  of  God."3  "Some 
people,"  remarked  John  Taylor,  "ask,  What  is  priest- 
hood? I  answer,  It  is  the  legitimate  rule  of  God, 

1  Key  to  the  Science  of  Theology,  pp.  66,  67. 

2  Journal  of  Discourses,  vol.  I,  p.  161. 

3  Journal  of  Discourses,  V.  83. 


440  LESS  IMPORTANT  TYPES 

whether  in  the  heavens  or  on  the  earth ;  and  it  is  the  only 
legitimate  power  that  has  a  right  to  rule  upon  the  earth ; 
and  when  the  will  of  God  is  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  the 
heavens,  no  other  power  will  bear  rule."1  "It  is  a  dread- 
ful thing,"  exclaimed  George  Q.  Cannon,  "to  fight  against 
or  in  any  manner  oppose  the  priesthood" ;  and  a  brother 
Mormon  provided  a  sanction  for  the  theocratic  sentiment 
in  this  bit  of  theological  disquisition :  "Men  who  hold 
the  priesthood  possess  divine  authority  thus  to  act  for 
God ;  and  by  possessing  part  of  God's  power  they  are  in 
reality  part  of  God."2 

Naturally  a  theocratic  consciousness,  like  that  which 
pervades  the  above  utterances,  when  embodied  in  men  of 
an  assertatory  temper  came  to  some  rather  striking  prac- 
tical expressions.  Sufficient  illustration  is  furnished  in 
the  record  of  Brigham  Young.  On  one  occasion,  re- 
ferring to  a  dissenting  party  in  the  Mormon  community, 
he  blurted  out :  "I  say,  rather  than  that  apostates  should 
flourish  here,  I  will  unsheathe  my  bowie  knife  and  con- 
quer or  die.  Now  you  nasty  apostates  clear  out,  or  judg- 
ment will  be  put  to  the  line  and  righteousness  to  the 
plummet."3  "No  man,"  he  exclaimed  on  a  second  oc- 
casion, "need  judge  me.  You  know  nothing  about  it, 
whether  I  am  sent  or  not ;  furthermore,  it  is  none  of  your 
business,  only  to  listen  with  open  ears  to  what  is  taught 
you  and  to  serve  God  with  an  undivided  heart."4  In  an- 
other instance,  alluding  to  the  presence  of  a  United  States 
judge  whom  he  and  his  following  had  treated  with  very 
scanty  courtesy,  he  said :  "Every  man  that  comes  to  im- 
pose on  this  people,  no  matter  by  whom  they  are  sent, 

1  Journal  of  Discourses,  V.  187. 

.     »  Roberts  quoted  by  J.  D.  Nutting,  The  True  Mormon  Doctrine. 
•Journal  of  Discourses,  I.  83.  *  Ibid.,  I.  341. 


MORMON  THEORIES  441 

or  who  they  are  that  are  sent,  lay  the  ax  at  the  root  of  the 
tree  to  kill  themselves.  I  will  do  as  I  said  I  would  last 
conference.  Apostates,  or  men  who  never  made  any 
profession  of  religion,  had  better  be  careful  how  they 
come  here,  lest  I  should  bend  my  little  finger."1 

We  have  not  yet  taken  the  full  measure  of  sacerdotal 
assumption  in  the  Mormon  system.  According  to  that 
system  the  effective  powers  of  priesthood  not  only  extend 
by  right  over  this  world,  but  reach  into  the  heavenly 
sphere,  and  serve  to  exalt  one  rank  there  to  a  genuine 
godhood  as  against  the  angelic  or  ministerial  position 
which  is  accorded  to  the  less  favored.  This  comes  about 
through  the  function  of  the  priesthood  which  is  indis- 
pensable in  the  solemnization  of  celestial  marriages,  or 
of  marriages  that  hold  good  for  eternity,  and  not  merely 
for  time.  As  Parley  P.  Pratt  put  the  matter:  "The 
union  of  the  sexes,  in  the  eternal  world,  in  the  holy 
covenant  of  celestial  matrimony,  is  peculiar  to  the  or- 
dinances and  ministrations  of  the  apostleship,  or  priest- 
hood after  the  order  of  the  Son  of  God,  or  after  the  order 
of  Melchizedek.  .  .  .  All  persons  who  attain  to  the  resur- 
rection, and  to  salvation,  without  these  eternal  ordinances, 
or  sealing  covenants,  will  remain  in  a  single  state,  in  their 
saved  condition,  to  all  eternity,  without  the  joys  of  eternal 
union  with  the  other  sex,  and  consequently  without  a 
crown,  without  a  kingdom,  without  the  power  to  increase. 
Hence,  they  are  angels,  and  are  not  gods;  and  are  min- 
istering spirits,  or  servants,  in  the  employ  and  under  the 
direction  of  THE  ROYAL  FAMILY  OF  HEAVEN — THE 
PRINCES,  KINGS,  AND  PRIESTS  OF  ETERNITY."2  Other 


1  Journal  of  Discourses,  I.  187.     See  Linn,  The  Story  of  the  Mormons, 
pp.  461-464.  2  Key  to  the  Science  of  Theology,  pp.  172,  173. 


442  LESS  IMPORTANT  TYPES 

priesthoods  have  claimed  powers  which  have  an  im- 
portant bearing  upon  the  fate  of  souls  in  the  other  world  ; 
it  is  the  peculiar  distinction  of  the  Mormon  priesthood 
that  it  boasts  of  a  prerogative  to  raise  its  special  clients 
to  the  position  of  a  divine  and  immortal  aristocracy,  to  be 
served  eternally  by  all  the  rest  of  the  inhabitants  of 
heaven. 

Still  another  extraordinary  item  in  the  sacerdotal  as- 
sumptions of  Mormonism  merits  notice.  So  privileged 
is  the  priesthood  of  the  Latter-day  Saints  that  it  is  com- 
petent squarely  to  contradict  itself  without  apology  or 
apparent  abashment.  This  was  strikingly  illustrated  in 
connection  with  the  subject  of  polygamy.  In  the  Book  of 
Mormon  the  practice  of  plural  marriage  was  denounced 
and  forbidden  in  these  vigorous  and  uncompromising 
terms:  "Behold,  David  and  Solomon  truly  had  many 
wives  and  concubines,  which  thing  was  abominable  before 
me,  saith  the  Lord,  wherefore,  thus  saith  the  Lord,  I 
have  led  this  people  forth  out  of  the  land  of  Jerusalem, 
by  the  power  of  mine  arm,  that  I  might  raise  up  unto  me 
a  righteous  branch  from  the  fruit  of  the  loins  of  Joseph. 
Wherefore,  I  the  Lord  God  will  not  suffer  that  this  people 
shall  do  like  unto  them  of  old.  Wherefore,  my  brethren, 
hear  me,  and  hearken  to  the  word  of  the  Lord ;  for  there 
shall  not  any  man  among  you  have  save  it  be  one  wife; 
and  concubines  he  shall  have  none;  for  I,  the  Lord  God, 
delighteth  in  the  chastity  of  women.  And  whoredoms 
are  an  abomination  before  me;  thus  saith  the  Lord  of 
Hosts."1  In  giving  forth  the  Book  of  Mormon  as  a 
divine  revelation  Joseph  Smith  subscribed,  before  the 


1  Fifth  European  edit.,  Book  of  Jacob,  chap,  ii,  §6.     Compare  Book  of 
Ether,  chap,  iv,  §  5. 


MORMON  THEORIES  443 

world,  to  the  conclusion  that  polygamy  is  prohibited  by 
divine  authority.  Moreover,  in  revelations  of  which  he 
assumed  himself  to  be  the  direct  recipient  he  used  lan- 
guage which  clearly  implies  the  standpoint  of  monogamy. 
In  February,  1831,  he  penned  this  deliverance:  "Thou 
shalt  love  thy  wife  with  all  thy  heart,  and  shalt  cleave 
unto  her  and  none  else;  and  he  that  looketh  upon  a 
woman  to  lust  after  her  shall  deny  the  faith,  and  shall  not 
have  the  spirit,  and  if  he  repents  not  he  shall  be  cast 
out."1  The  following  month,  claiming  to  speak  again  by 
revelation,  he  said:  "Marriage  is  ordained  of  God  unto 
man ;  wherefore  it  is  lawful  that  he  should  have  one  wife, 
and  they  twain  shall  be  one  flesh."2  But  this  same  Joseph 
Smith  twelve  years  later,  at  a  time  when  it  had  become 
convenient  to  protect  himself  against  his  own  record  by 
turning  God  into  the  patron  of  his  amours,  categorically 
approved  polygamy  and  celestial  marriage  in  a  revelation 
which  his  followers,  after  keeping  it  in  the  background 
for  a  period,  gave  forth  in  Utah  in  1852  as  his  inspired 
production.3  And  this  authoritative  publication  has  been 
supplemented  by  priestly  declarations  of  the  most  decisive 
and  peremptory  character.  Said  Brigham  Young  in  one 
of  his  addresses :  "If  any  of  you  will  deny  the  plurality 
of  wives  and  continue  to  do  so,  I  promise  that  you  will 
be  damned ;  and  I  will  go  further  and  say,  take  this  revela- 
tion, or  any  other  revelation  that  the  Lord  has  given, 
and  deny  it  in  your  feelings,  and  I  promise  that  you  will 
be  damned."4  Others  have  spoken  with  scarcely  less 
fervor  and  decision  for  the  creed  of  polygamy.  By  a  re- 
markably rapid  development  it  became,  along  with  the 


1  Doctrine  and  Covenants,  xlii.  22,  23.  *  Ibid.,  xlix.  15,  16. 

*Ibid.,  cxxxii.  *  Journal  of  Discourses,  III.  266. 


444  LESS  IMPORTANT  TYPES 

supplementary  doctrine  of  celestial  marriage,  a  corner 
stone  of  theoretical  and  practical  Mormonism.  The  most 
pronounced  phallic  systems  of  the  pagan  world  were  left 
in  the  rear  by  the  Mormon  dogmatists,  who  went  on  to 
make  the  degree  of  procreation  the  degree  of  possible 
godhood,  and  to  construe  God  and  heaven  as  well  as 
earthly  dignity  and  weal  by  the  extent  and  fruitfulness 
of  sexual  connections.1  Such  is  the  high  privilege  of  the 
Mormon  priesthood  to  trample  under  foot  the  demands 
of  self-consistency.  After  founding  its  claim  to  divine 
authority  on  the  Book  of  Mormon,  it  sanctions,  exalts, 
and  imposes,  under  threats  of  damnation  against  op- 
posers,  that  which  the  Book  of  Mormon  sternly  condemns 
and  prohibits,  that  which  furthermore  Joseph  Smith  rep- 
robated in  his  earlier  revelations. 

In  respect  of  sacramental  theory  the  standards  of  Mor- 
monism exhibit  very  few  peculiarities.  They  may  be 
regarded  as  reflecting  on  this  theme  the  standpoint  of 
Sidney  Rigdon,  who  more  than  any  other  man  was  the 
lieutenant  of  Joseph  Smith  up  to  the  era  of  polygamy.2 
and  is  believed  by  competent  investigators  to  have  had 
much  more  to  do  than  his  chief  in  shaping  the  oracles 
and  the  system  of  Mormonism.3  The  eucharist  is  de- 
scribed in  these  standards  as  though  it  were  regarded 
simply  as  a  commemorative  rite.  No  proper  sacrament 
of  penance  comes  to  view.  The  power  of  binding  and 
loosing  is  indeed  asserted  in  emphatic  terms  to  pertain  to 
the  priesthood,  but  the  reference  seems  to  be  to  the  ad- 


1  For  specimens  see  Brigham  Young,  in  Journal  of  Discourses,  III.  266; 
I.  50;  Joseph  Smith,  in  Doctrine  and  Covenants,  cxxxii;  Parley  P.  Pratt, 
Key  to  the  Science  of  Theology,  pp.  161,  162,  171-173. 

*  See  the  line  of  references  to  him  in  Doctrine  and  Covenants,  sects,  xxxv, 
xxxvi,  xlii,  Hi,  Ixxi,  Ixxvi,  xc,  c,  cii,  cxv,  cxxiv. 

1  See  in  particular  Linn,  The  Story  of  the  Mormons. 


MORMON  THEORIES  445 

ministration  of  government  and  discipline  in  general,  and 
not  to  a  giving  or  withholding  of  sacramental  absolu- 
tion. It  is  to  be  observed  also  that  the  doctrine  of  a 
necessary  blood  atonement  for  the  more  heinous  sins,  in 
so  far  as  it  came  to  recognition,  evidently  implied  limita- 
tions on  the  absolving  power  of  the  priesthood.1 

Among  sacred  ceremonies  baptism  has  been  accorded 
the  maximum  stress  in  Mormon  teaching.  Its  treatment 
in  standard  writings  corresponds  in  general  to  Sidney 
Rigdon's  previous  association  with  Alexander  Campbell 
and  the  Disciples.  But  some  advances  were  made.  The 
qualifications  which  Campbell  put  upon  the  regenerative 
efficacy  of  baptism,  and  which  he  did  not  find  it  altogether 
easy  to  manage  in  connection  with  his  general  theory  of 
the  office  of  the  rite,  were  left  aside.  In  the  Mormon 
expositions  baptism  is  bluntly  described  as  effecting  re- 
mission of  sins  and  as  strictly  necessary  for  the  salvation 
of  those  who  have  reached  the  age  of  moral  discernment. 
We  read  in  the  book  of  Doctrine  and  Covenants :  "Verily 
I  say  unto  you,  they  who  believe  not  on  your  words  and 
are  not  baptized  in  water  in  my  name  for  the  remission 
of  sins,  that  they  may  receive  the  Holy  Ghost,  shall  be 
damned."2  "Baptism,"  says  Jedidiah  M.  Grant,  "is  an 
institution  of  heaven  sanctioned  by  the  Father,  revealed 
by  the  Son,  taught  by  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost ; 
and  is  the  method  by  which  a  man's  sins  can  be  remit- 
ted."3 "The  special  purpose  of  baptism,"  writes  Talmage, 
"is  to  afford  admission  to  the  Church  of  Christ  with  re- 
mission of  sins."4  The  same  writer  declares :  "Inasmuch 
as  remission  of  sins  constitutes  a  special  purpose  of  bap- 

1  For  unequivocal  expressions  of  the  doctrine  see  Brigham  Young,  in 
Journal  of  Discourses,  IV.  49,  51,  219,  220.  2  Ixxxiv.  74. 

1  Journal  of  Discourses,  II.  229.  *  Articles  of  Faith,  p.  124. 


446  LESS  IMPORTANT  TYPES 

tism,  and  as  no  soul  can  be  saved  in  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  with  unforgiven  sins,  it  is  plain  that  baptism 
is  essential  to  salvation."1  In  the  Mormon  catechism  it 
is  taught  that  "no  person  who  has  arrived  at  years  of 
accountability,  and  has  heard  the  gospel,  can  be  saved 
without  baptism."2  So  thoroughly  is  it  the  conviction 
of  the  Mormons  that  salvation  for  those  who  have  per- 
sonally sinned  is  impossible  apart  from  baptism  that  they 
have  sanctioned  baptism  by  proxy  in  behalf  of  the  un- 
baptized  dead.3 

The  grounds  of  objection  to  Mormonism  are  so  plainly 
revealed  in  its  history,  and  stand  out  so  distinctly  in  the 
character  and  contents  of  its  special  oracles,  that  it  would 
be  a  work  of  supererogation  to  award  them  a  formal  state- 
ment. The  sacerdotal  system  of  Irvingism  is  also  quite 
too  destitute  of  any  substantial  grounds  of  acceptance 
to  make  it  worth  while  to  give  any  specific  attention  to 
its  claims.  There  is  the  less  need  to  do  this  in  considera- 
tion of  the  fact  that  some  of  its  prominent  assumptions 
are  exposed  to  criticisms  which  have  been  passed  upon 
other  systems. 

»  Page  130. 

3  Cited  by  Nutting,  The  True  Mormon  Doctrine. 

*  Doctrine  and  Covenants,  cxxiv.  32-39;  Talmage,  Articles  of  Faith, 
pp.  152.  382- 


CONCLUSION 

AT  the  first  view  it  seems  a  strange  anomaly  that  the 
century  distinguished  by  the  greatest  industry,  freedom, 
and  daring  in  all  lines  of  intellectual  activity  should  have 
witnessed  such  aggravations  of  sacerdotal  theory  and 
such  vigorous  attempts  to  subjugate  the  world  to  the 
dominion  of  the  sacerdotal  principle  as  have  been  de- 
scribed in  the  preceding  pages.  But  on  deeper  considera- 
tion the  concurrence  of  the  contrasted  developments  is 
made  quite  intelligible.  The  intellectual  activity  appeared 
to  numerous  representatives  of  the  sacerdotal  systems  to 
bode  ill  to  their  interests — to  be,  in  truth,  a  downright 
menace  to  the  whole  scheme  of  priestly  tutelage  and 
sovereignty.  They  bestirred  themselves,  therefore,  to 
provide  means  of  defense  and  offset.  And  naturally  the 
means  preferred  by  them  corresponded  to  the  instinct  of 
sacerdotalism,  to  its  dislike  of  free  intellectual  scrutiny, 
and  to  its  appetite  for  appeals  to  authority.  As  the  age 
called  with  special  vigor  to  free  investigation,  so  they 
sought  to  forestall  all  possibility  of  the  admission  of 
troublesome  verdicts  by  exalting  ecclesiastical  authority 
to  the  highest  pitch.  In  different  ways  Oxfordism  and 
Vaticanism  both  were  reactionary  schemes,  attempts 
through  stiffening  the  demands  of  authority  to  safeguard 
sacerdotal  fabrics  against  the  assaults  of  criticism.  The 
one  made  a  rash  ill-considered  appeal  to  the  decisive  voice 
of  Christian  antiquity.  The  other  sought  to  outdo  the 
Hobbesian  remedy  for  dissent  and  disorder  by  turning 

447 


448  CONCLUSION 

the  ecclesiastical  ruler,  the  Roman  pontiff,  into  a  great 
Leviathan,  capable  of  swallowing  up  all  dogmatic  and  all 
practical  opposition  alike. 

In  a  theoretical  point  of  view  this  sacerdotal  response 
to  the  exigency  created  by  an  age  of  unwonted  intellectual 
daring  and  activity  may  seem  ridiculously  inadequate,  a 
choice  of  the  road  leading  to  speedy  and  certain  downfall. 
The  response  was,  in  truth,  an  arbitrary  makeshift  rather 
than  a  genuine  attempt  to  deal  with  the  new  intellectual 
conditions.  But  still  it  would  argue  haste  and  super- 
ficiality if  one  should  conclude  that  no  formidable  result 
is  involved  in  these  recent  developments  of  sacerdotalism. 
When  high  pretense  once  gains  the  support  of  historic  as- 
sociations and  well-compacted  organization  it  finds  means 
of  perpetuation  in  bold,  unblushing,  intemperate  assertion 
of  itself.  Tried  by  the  test  of  a  searching  and  unbiased 
inspection  of  its  grounds  the  supremacy  claimed  by  the 
Brahmanical  caste  may  not  have  deserved  a  moment's 
respectful  attention.  Nevertheless,  twenty-five  centuries 
have  not  availed  to  wrest  the  yoke  of  that  supremacy  from 
the  necks  of  vast  multitudes  in  India.  History  teaches  no 
lesson  more  plainly  than  that  sacerdotal  pretense  backed 
by  efficient  organization  is  not  a  thing  to  be  lightly  esti- 
mated. 

It  results  from  what  has  just  been  said  that  in  an 
enumeration  of  the  demands  imposed  upon  evangelical 
Protestantism  by  the  developments  recounted  in  this 
volume  mention  should  be  awarded  first  of  all  to  its  obli- 
gation to  recognize  the  seriousness  of  the  task  of  main- 
taining itself  against  sacerdotal  aggression  and  of  securing 
what  it  believes  to  be  the  due  right  of  way  for  spiritual 
and  rational  religion  in  the  world.  It  should  not  'blink 


CONCLUSION  449 

the  fact  that  it  is  confronted  by  a  powerful,  determined, 
and  aggressive  antagonist.  No  more  should  it  depend 
upon  the  spirit  of  the  age  to  wage  the  effectual  warfare 
against  that  antagonist.  That  would  be  a  piece  of  optim- 
istic foolishness.  More  than  one  spirit  works  in  the  age, 
and  the  degree  to  which  the  worthier  spirit  is  to  gain 
dominion  must  depend  upon  the  number,  energy,  and 
practical  wisdom  of  its  agents  or  representatives.  Evan- 
gelical Protestantism  may  doubtless  take  heart  from  the 
conviction  that  the  progress  of  the  spirit  of  free  investiga- 
tion, whatever  temporary  difficulties  it  may  involve,  must 
ultimately  work  as  its  friend  and  as  the  foe  of  its  foe. 
But  that  is  simply  a  ground  for  cheerful  courage,  not  an 
excuse  for  inertness.  The  day  has  not  yet  come,  and  no 
prophet  can  foretell  the  time  of  its  coming,  when  the 
children  of  the  Reformers  can,  with  any  degree  of  pru- 
dence, abandon  their  watch  or  rest  upon  their  weapons. 
Deplorable  as  was  the  polemical  bitterness  of  the  past,  it 
was  more  respectable  than  is  the  apathy  which  gives  no 
proper  heed  to  the  demands  of  a  cause  vital  to  the  welfare 
of  mankind.  By  all  means  let  the  bitterness  be  avoided ; 
let  the  old-time  fury  be  forever  banished;  let  work  for 
the  kingdom  of  Christ  be  leavened  with  the  spirit  of 
Christ;  but  let  there  be  no  lack  of  alertness  to  inquire 
what  ought  to  be  done,  and  no  lack  of  resolution  to  dis- 
charge the  obligation  of  the  hour.  On  no  other  basis  have 
the  heirs  of  the  Reformation  a  right  to  look  toward  an 
horizon  bright  with  promise. 

A  second  and  most  obvious  obligation  resting  upon 
evangelical  Protestantism  is  that  of  striving  earnestly  to 
abate  the  mischief  of  needless  subdivision  and  to  work 
toward  unity  of  heart  and  enterprise.  Even  were  no 


450  CONCLUSION 

powerful  antagonist  in  the  field,  the  plainest  dictates  of 
economical  and  rational  procedure  would  imperatively 
demand  the  steadfast  pursuit  of  this  end.  In  the  face  of 
the  encroaching  antagonist  it  is  nothing  less  than  criminal 
folly  to  sacrifice  any  feasible  unity  to  a  policy  of  wasteful 
division  and  narrow-minded  competition.  It  does  not 
follow,  however,  that  indorsement  is  due  to  any  summary 
method  for  compounding  Protestant  communions.  The 
superficial  empiricist  who  sets  out  to  achieve  Protestant 
unity  in  short  order  is  quite  certain  to  enhance  the  evil 
of  the  existing  conditions.  Organic  unity  is  not  a  thing 
to  be  achieved  tomorrow.  It  is  not  certain  that  under 
earthly  conditions  it  will  ever  be  quite  desirable.  But 
allowing  it  to  stand  as  an  ideal,  which  can  and  ought  to 
be  greatly  approximated,  we  cannot  expect  to  make  sub- 
stantial progress  toward  it  without  paying  due  respect 
to  preliminary  stages.  For  one  thing,  evangelical  Protes- 
tant communions,  in  so  far  as  they  are  willing  to  entertain 
the  thought  of  union,  or  to  look  toward  it  with  any  sort 
of  serious  purpose,  are  bound  in  consistency  to  emphasize 
the  greatness  and  importance  of  the  things  which  they 
hold  in  common,  and  to  recognize  the  comparative  trivial- 
ity of  most  of  the  differences  by  which  they  are  separated. 
Seen  in  true  perspective  many  of  these  differences  must  be 
granted  to  be  well-nigh  of  contemptible  import.  Again, 
it  is  incumbent  on  these  communions  to  exercise  a  broad- 
minded  fraternity,  a  rational  and  large-hearted  comity  in 
adjusting  matters  of  mutual  concern.  For  instance,  it 
ought  to  be  an  acknowledged  principle  with  them  to  dis- 
courage the  maintenance  of  a  superfluous  number  of 
churches  in  towns  of  small  size  and  comparatively  sta- 
tionary population.  It  may  require  abundant  grace  and 


CONCLUSION  451 

wisdom  to  fulfill  the  delicate  task  of  reducing  the  number 
of  denominational  organizations  by  which  a  vast  number 
of  communities  are  overburdened.  But  as  surely  as  evan- 
gelical Protestantism  has  any  divine  vocation  in  the 
world,  it  is  called  of  God  to  exercise  the  unselfish  and 
fraternal  spirit  requisite  for  the  fulfillment  of  this  ex- 
ceedingly difficult  task.  Successful  practice  along  the 
line  of  this  most  needful  comity  will  be  a  beautiful  dem- 
onstration of  heart-unity,  and  may  well  be  followed  up 
by  organic  unity,  first  on  the  part  of  communions  closely 
akin,  and  then  on  the  part  of  those  whose  history  has  run 
in  somewhat  more  divergent  channels.  That  among 
recent  events  the  historian  is  able  to  recount  several  which 
look  like  a  prophecy  of  a  greatly  extended  comity  and 
work  of  unification  is  properly  a  source  of  enheartenment 
to  those  whose  longing  and  purpose  reach  toward  that 
consummation. 

We  speak  only  of  the  obligation  of  Protestant  com- 
munions to  consult  for  unity  among  themselves,  and  we 
do  this  in  obedience  to  the  dictates  of  the  history  recorded 
in  this  volume.  It  will  be  time  to  broach  the  subject 
of  unity  in  a  broader  sense  when  the  sacerdotal  Churches 
have  shown  an  altogether  different  spirit  and  made 
an  altogether  different  record  from  that  which  they  have 
put  on  exhibition  in  the  last  century.  Prior  to  that  vast 
transformation  nothing  beyond  relations  of  mutual  toler- 
ance and  courtesy  can  rationally  be  contemplated  by 
either  side.  As  well  attempt  to  combine  the  antipodes  as 
endeavor  to  unite  Protestantism  with  the  nineteenth- 
century  type  of  Romanism. 

A  third  demand  which  rests  upon  evangelical  Protes- 
tantism is  the  diligent  cultivation  of  a  spirit  of  catholicity, 


452  CONCLUSION 

that  is,  a  spirit  prompt  to  appreciate  and  to  reckon  as  a 
part  of  its  own  inheritance  all  superior  manifestations 
in  character  and  deed  throughout  the  whole  domain  of 
Christianity  from  the  days  of  the  apostles  to  the  present. 
A  number  of  considerations  unite  to  enforce  this  demand. 
In  the  first  place,  it  is  commended  by  the  fact  that  there 
is  nothing  in  the  nature  of  evangelical  Protestantism  that 
is  incompatible  with  such  a  spirit  of  catholicity.  The 
broad  range  which  it  gives  to  private  judgment  provides 
a  logical  basis  of  a  friendly  estimate  of  the  piety  of  men 
who  may  have  been  at  fault  in  some  of  their  theological 
opinions.  Renouncing  for  itself,  as  well  as  denying  to 
all  rivals,  a  doctrinal  infallibility,  it  does  not  place  those 
who  may  have  failed  to  give  the  precise  dogmatic  pass- 
word under  the  shadow  of  irreversible  anathemas.  In 
perfect  accord  with  its  platform  it  can  extend  interest 
and  appreciation  to  all  men  of  saintly  record  in  the  pre- 
Reformation  and  in  the  post-Reformation  Church  alike. 
No  sacerdotal  communion  is  half  so  well-conditioned  as 
respects  a  consistent  basis  for  the  exercise  of  the  spirit 
of  catholicity.  Furthermore,  the  fostering  of  this  spirit 
is  emphatically  appropriate,  since  it  is  the  natural  foe  of 
partitions  and  the  natural  ally  of  unity.  The  narrow 
provincial  outlook  has  been  responsible  for  many  of  the 
divisions  of  Protestantism.  In  instance  after  instance  a 
man  has  gotten  hold  of  some  idea,  and  excited  by  his 
sense  of  possession  has  hastily  drawn  the  conclusion  that 
he  was  called  to  make  over  the  world  according  to  the 
pattern  of  that  idea.  Had  his  contemplation  been  lifted 
above  the  local  horizon,  he  would  have  discovered  that  it 
was  neither  possible  nor  desirable  to  make  over  the  world 
in  conformity  to  his  contracted  scheme.  Once  more, 


CONCLUSION  453 

through  the  cultivation  of  a  spirit  of  catholicity  evan- 
gelical Protestantism  will  gain  a  compensation  for  the 
ecclesiastical  continuity  which  is  the  boast  of  the  sacer- 
dotal Churches.  What  matters  it  that  the  former  is 
charged  with  falling  short  in  respect  of  external  connec- 
tions ?  Sense  of  kinship  in  the  spirit  is  the  superior  bond. 
So  long  as  Protestantism,  in  the  temper  of  true  catholicity, 
makes  a  retrospect  of  the  ages,  and  claims  an  in- 
heritance in  all  true  thoughts  about  God  and  about 
man,  in  all  Christlike  traits  and  deeds,  it  is  nor- 
mally linked  with  the  ancient  and  the  intermediate, 
with  the  primitive  and  the  modern,  and  has  no  occasion 
to  be  abashed  by  reference  to  any  marks  of  historical 
connections  in  which  a  rival  may  think  fit  to  glory.  In 
this  larger  communion  with  the  good  and  the  true  of  all 
the  centuries  it  is,  of  course,  to  be  understood  that  the 
requirements  of  a  sane  historical  criticism  will  not  be 
abandoned.  Official  catalogues  will  count  for  next  to 
nothing.  No  dubious  character  of  an  earlier  age,  who 
in  point  of  Christlikeness  is  excelled  by  thousands  of  men 
and  women  in  the  present,  will  be  placed  upon  a  pedestal, 
just  because  a  foolish  custom  has  prefixed  the  word 
"Saint"  to  his  name.  Catholicity  means,  not  obeisance 
to  badges  and  titles,  but  heart-fellowship  with  all  the 
genuinely  good  and  true,  with  all  who  have  given  evi- 
dence of  close  union  with  the  center  of  fellowship,  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

It  is  worth  considering  whether  a  further  demand  does 
not  rest  upon  evangelical  Protestantism,  namely,  the  de- 
mand to  bestow  increased  study  upon  the  problem  of 
edifying  forms  of  worship.  Thoughtful  people  will 
hardly  care  to  deny  that  it  is  a  matter  of  very  considerable 


454  CONCLUSION 

importance  to  bring  Protestant  worship  as  near  as  possible 
to  the  happy  mean  between  excessive  plainness  and  a 
burdensome  superfluity  of  forms.  A  legitimate  motive 
to  incline  to  the  side  of  plainness  may  exist  where  there 
is  a  liability  that  forms  should  be  regarded  superstitiously. 
But  when  once  ceremonial  has  been  divorced  from  all 
connection  with  magic  and  theurgy,  and  has  come  to  be 
rated  simply  as  a  means  of  expressing  the  subject-matter 
of  faith  by  emblematic  act  or  symbol,  liberty  in  its  use 
will  properly  be  limited  only  by  the  extent  to  which  it  can 
be  made  useful  in  impressing  truth.  Doubtless  the  man 
of  pronounced  intellectual  habitudes  is  likely  to  feel  very 
little  need  of  ceremonial,  and  may  even  be  disposed  to 
speak  rather  contemptuously  of  it  as  a  mere  kindergarten 
expedient.  He  might  properly  be  advised,  however,  that 
not  all  people  are  predominantly  intellectual  beings,  and 
that  there  is  room  for  a  profitable  employment  of  kinder- 
garten expedients.  The  danger  of  excess,  it  is  true,  is 
something  which  needs  to  be  kept  in  mind;  but,  on  the 
whole,  there  is  good  reason  why  evangelical  Protestantism 
should  give  earnest  heed  to  the  question  whether  in  the 
matter  of  ceremonial  it  is  furnishing  the  best  ministry 
within  its  power  to  the  religious  needs  of  men.  The  more 
determined  it  is  to  eschew  the  folly  and  untruth  of  the 
sacerdotal  Churches,  the  more  ready  should  it  be  to  re- 
ceive from  them  any  useful  suggestion  which  they  are 
able  to  furnish. 

The  catalogue  of  demands  would  be  left  incomplete  did 
we  not  recur  to  one  which  received  a  passing  reference  at 
the  very  beginning  of  this  volume.  We  conclude,  then, 
by  saying :  Above  all  else  it  behooves  the  evangelical  com- 
munions, in  all  practical  ways,  with  constant  fidelity  and 


CONCLUSION  455 

love,  to  put  forth  the  evangelical  message,  the  proclama- 
tion of  the  fullness,  nearness,  and  perfect  accessibility  of 
divine  grace,  the  doctrine  of  the  universal  call  to  men  to 
come  directly  to  God  as  revealed  in  Christ,  and  to  expect 
at  his  hands  an  unstinted  supply  for  their  deep  needs.  In 
spirituality,  depth,  effectiveness  of  appeal,  and  fidelity  to 
the  gospel,  this  is  the  unrivaled  message.  May  its  sweet 
and  solemn  notes  be  voiced  in  the  coming  age  more  per- 
suasively than  ever  before. 


INDEX 


Absolution,  doctrine  of  priestly, 
257  ff.,  310,  367  ff.,  431;  criti- 
cism of  the  doctrine,  266  ff., 
421  ff. 

Absolutism,  papal,  55  ff. 

Adrian  VI,  202 

Alexander  VI,  214,  218;  Alex- 
ander VII,  202  f.,  263;  Alex- 
ander VIII,  228 

Ammianus  Marcellinus,  210 

Amort,  E.,  232 

Anglo-Catholic   movement,    313 

ff.,  392  ff- 

Anselm,  95 

Apostolate,  Irvingite  theory  of 
the,  433  ff. 

Apostolical  succession,  doctrine 
of,  347  ff.,  404  ff. 

Aquinas,  Thomas,  95,  108,  135 
f.,  241,  244 

Arnold,  T.,  319,  322 

Arthur,  W.,  215 

Attrition,  261  ff.,  371 

Augustine,  174  ff.,  248,  257 

Authority,  principle  of,  as  re- 
garded by  Roman  Catholics, 
3  ff.,  44  ff.,  by  the  Greek 
Church,  293;  by  Anglo-Cath- 
olics, 334  ff.,  394  ff. 

Bailly,  L.,  57,  87 

Baird,  H.  M.,  218 

Bancroft,  R.,  317 

Baptism,  Roman  Catholic  doc- 
trine respecting  its  necessity, 
231  ff. ;  criticism  of  the  doc- 
trine. 235  ff. ;  Greek  Church 


doctrine,  307;  Anglo-Catholic 
doctrine,  360  ff.,  418  f . ;  Ir- 
vingite doctrine,  436;  Mormon 
doctrine,  445  f. 

Baring-Gould,  S.,  341,  377 

Barrow,  I.,  164 

Basil,  173,  182,  257 

Basle,  Council  of,  114,  198  f. 

Baur,  F.  C.,  39 

Bellarmine,  R.,  92,  217,  224, 
240 

Benedict  IX,  211;  Benedict 
XIII,  263 

Billia,  L.  M.,  250 

Billot,  L.,  n,  183,  187,  204,  217, 
229,  235,  242,  245,  266 

Blenkinsopp,  E.  L.,  339,  350 

Bonald,  L.  G.  A.  de,  71 

Boniface  VIII,  19 

Bouix,  D.,  36 

Boutard,  C.,  83 

Bright,  W.,  158,  170 

Byrne,  W.,  235 

Cajetan,  T.  de  V.,  232 

Campbell,  A.,  445 

Canus,  M.,  96 

Carthage,  Synods  of,  154,  163 

Catholicity,  obligation  of  Prot- 
estants to  cultivate,  451  ff. 

Cecconi,  E.,  38,  58,  62,  90,  99, 
103,  no 

Chalcedon,  Council  of,  166,  169, 
171  ff.,  186 

Clarke,  H.  W.,  368.  370,  372  f., 
422  f. 

Clarke,  R.  H..  69 


456 


INDEX 


457 


Clement  of  Rome,  156 
Clement  V,  2 1 2  ;  Clement  VI ,  2 1 2 
Collier,  J.,  318 

Concordats,  the  nature  of,  23 
Confession,    auricular,    257    ff.,   i 

309  f.,  367  ff.,  421  ff. 
Confraternity    of    the    Blessed 

Sacrament,  364,  366 
Constance,  Council  of,  114,  193 

ff-  243 

Constantinople,  First  Council  of 
(second  ecumenical),  166,  177; 
Second  Council  of  (fifth  ecu- 
menical), 170  f. ;  Third  Coun- 
cil of  (sixth  ecumenical),  188 
ff. 

Conway,  J.,  29 

Coppens,  C.,  12,  235 

Costa- Rossetti,  J.,  21,  34 

Crowley,  J.  J.,  382 

Cullen,  P.,  88,  115 

Cyprian,  151  ff.,  256,  273 

Cyril  of  Alexandria,  158,  186 

Czar,  the,  299  ff. 

Dalberg,  K.  von,  59 

Dechamps,  Victor,  60 

Deposing  power,  175. 

Devivier,  W.,  5,  35 

Devotion  of  the  sentimental 
type,  100  ff.,  129  ff.,  279  f. 

Dionysius  of  Alexandria,  148 

Dollinger,  I.  von,  39,  61,  88,  102, 
108,  in,  124  ff.,  130,  161,  168, 
192,  195,  200,  202,  209,  385  f. 

Dositheus,  293,  301,  307  f. 

Doyle,  J.,  66 

Drey,  S.  von,  61 

Eck,  H.  V.  S.,  360 
Ellicott,  C.  J.,  372,  422 
Errington,  G.,  89 


Eucharist,  Roman  Catholic  doc- 
trine of  the,  239  ff.,  246  ff. ; 
•  Greek  Church  doctrine,  308  f . ; 
Anglo-Catholic   doctrine,   363 
ff.,  419  ff. 

Eugenius  IV,  195,  198  f.,  202 
Eusebius  of  Caesarea,  157  f.,  257 
Ex    cathedra,    meaning    of    the 

phrase,  119  f. 
Eymeric,  216,  218 

Faguet,  E.,  72,  83 

Florence,  Council  of,   114,   199, 

227,  232 

Forsyth,  P.  T.,  414 
Fortescue,  A.,  300 
Frankfurt,  Synod  of,  188 
Friedrich,  J.,  60,  62,  71,  75,  88, 

90,  97,  102,  104,  110,  112,  114 
Frohschammer,  J.,  7,  87 
Froude,  R.  H.,  314,  318  f.,  323, 

335  f-  352.  367. 375 

Gagarin,  I.,  290,  300 

Gallicanism,  55  ff. 

Gaume,  J.  J.,  4,  13,  84,  258  f. 

Gelasius  I,  200  f. 

Gibbons,  J.,  5.  51 

Gibson,  W.,  84 

Gieseler,  J.  C.  L.,  256 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  25,  66  f.,  129, 

346 

Gore,  C.,  363,  410 
Gorham,  G.  C.,  328 
Gorres,  J.  J.,  60 
Goulburn,  E.  M.,  350 
Grabau,  J.  A.  A.,  432 
Grafton,  C.  C.,  351,  353,  371 
Granderath,  T.,  36  f.,  58,  63  ff., 

85,  115,  187,  207 
Gratry,  A.,  102 
Greek  Church,  287  ff. 


INDEX 


Gregorovius,  F.  A.,  211,  213 

Gregory  I,  167;  Gregory  II,  201; 
Gregory  VII,  201;  Gregory  XI, 
212;  Gregory  XIII,  218; 
Gregory  XVI,  39  £.,  83,  264 

Grindal,  E.,  314 

Grub,  G.,  317 

Guettee,  A.  F.  W.,  58,  87 

Guild  of  All  Souls,  367 

Gunther,  A.,  7,  87 

Gury,  J.  P.,  265 

Hall,  A.  C.  A.,  354,  361 

Hall,  F.  J.,  403 

Hall,  S.,  394 

Hampden,    R.   D.,   322,   325   f., 

328,  417 
Harnack,    A.,     145,     256,     274, 

4i3 

Headlam,  A.  C.,  295,  309,  312 

Heard,  A.  F.,  306 

Hefele,  C.  J.  von,  61,  121  f.,  154, 

169,  190  f.,  193,  200  f.,  211 
Heinrich,  J.  B.,  6,  n,  31,   128, 

223  f.,  234  f.,  241,  244,  260, 

265 

HergenrSther,  J.,  33,  112,  204 
Hergenrother,  P.,  5,  22,  31,  34, 

36,  128 

Hermes,  G.,  61,  87 
Hoensbroech,  Graf  von,  24 
Honorius  I,  115,  189  ff. 
Hontheim,  N.  von,  59 
Hook,  W.  F.,  314 
Hooker,  R.,  315  f. 
Hore,  A.  H.,  295,  297,  386 
Hosius,  170  f. 
Humphrey,  W.,  358 
Hunter,  S.  J.,  12,  206,  235 
Hurter,  H.,  8,  223,  228  f.,  235, 

242,  245,  265 
Hutton,  R.  H.,  388 


Immaculate  conception  of  Mary, 

93  «• 
Index,  Congregation  of  the,  u, 

37  f-.  62 
Inerrancy,  dogma  of  scriptural, 

9ff. 
Infallibility,  of  the  Church,  3  ff., 

44  ff.,  403  f. ;  of  the  popes,  55 

ff.,  109  f.,  179  ff. 
Innocent  I,   200;   Innocent  III, 

39,  96,  216;  Innocent  IV,  216; 

Innocent   VIII,    213,    216   f. ; 

Innocent  XI,  263 
Inquisition,  the,  218  f. 
Intention,  doctrine  of,  227  ff. 
Intolerance,  record  of  the  popes 

in  respect  of,  39  ff.,  215  ff. ; 

extent  of  in   Russian  admin- 
istration, 303  f. 
Irenaeus,  144,  148  ff.,  256,  411 
Irving,  E.,  432 
Irvingism,  432  ff. 
Ives,  L.  S.,  333 

Jerome,  161,  200 

Jewel,  J.,  314 

John    XII,    21 1 ;    John    XXII, 

201   f. 

Jowett,  B.,  322,  411 

Keble,  J.,  323 
Keenan,  S.,  4,  67 
Kenrick,  P.,  66  f.,  69,  180 
Killen,  W.  D.,  89 
Klee,  H.,  233 
Kliefoth,  T.  F.  D.,  430  ff. 
Koch,  A.,  266 
Konings,  A.,  27  f. 
Konissky,  G.f  295 

Lacordaire,  J.  B.  H.  D.,  84 
Lagrange,  M.  J.,  12 
Lamennais,  F.  de,  76  ff.,  85,  104 


INDEX 


459 


Langen,  J.,  62,  138,  185,  211 
Lateran  Council,  the  Fifth,  199 
Laud,  W.,  319  £. 
Laymann,  P.,  262,  266 
Lea,  H.  C.,  219  f.,  274  f. 
Lehmkuhl,  A.,  266 
Lendrum,  A.,  377 
Lenormant,  P.,  n 
Leo  I,  164,  167,  169,  172,  184  f.; 

Leo  II,  190;  Leo  X,  217;  Leo 

XII,  39;  Leo  XIII,  10,  26,  28, 

41  ff.,  130  ff.,  228,  354,  389 
Lequeux,  J.  F.  M.,  58,  87 
Leroy-Beaulieu,  A.,  85,  291  ff., 

302,  306,  310  f. 
Liberatore,  M.,   19,   23,  30,  33, 

127 
Liberty  of  conscience,  worship, 

and  press,  31  ff. 
Lichtenberger,  F.,  88,  430 
Liddon,  H.  P.,  319,  327,  329  f., 

340,  368  f. 
Lightfoot,  J.  B.,  412 
Liguori,  A.  M.  de,  129  f.,  263  f., 

266,  389 

Linn,  W.  A.,  441,  444 
Littledale,  R.  F.,  319,  376,  381 

f.,  402 

Loisy,  A.,  12,  389 
Lourdes,  127 
Lowndes,  A.,  355 
Luther,  Martin,  425  ff. 

Macaulay,  T.  B.,  314 
Macdonnel,  J.  C.,  332 
M'llvaine,  C.  P.,  361 
Maistre,  J.  de,  71  ff.,  85,  104 
Malou,  J.  B.,  92,  101 
Manning,  H.  E.,  60,  68,  103,  127, 
328,  337,  346,  385  ff.,  390  ff. 
Mansi,  D.,  190,  194  ff.,  211,  216 
Maret,  H.  L.  C.,  75,  in,  195,  207 


Martin  V,  194,  196  f.,  343 

Michaud,  E.,  57  f.,  88 

Miller,  E.,  433,  436 

Moberly,  G.,  353 

Moberly,  R.  C.,  355,  412 

Modernism,  282,  389  £. 

Mohler,  J.  A.,  8,  61 

Mogilas,  P.,  293,  301,  308 

Molitor,  W.,  20 

Monsabre,  J.  M.  L.,  222  f.,  234 

Montalembert,  C.  F.  de  T.,  34, 

38,  84  f.,  112 
Mortimer,  A.  G.,  334,  351.  355. 

359.  363.  365.  37L  377 
Murray,  D.,  66 
Myers,  F.,  407 

Neale,  J.  M.,  311 
Neo-Lutherans,    their    type    of 

sacerdotalism,  430  ff. 
Neve,  J.  L.,  432 
Newbolt,  W.  C.  E.,  353 
Newman,  J.  H.,  4,  67,  323  ff., 

336  f.,   339   ff-.   343   ff-   361, 

385  ff.,  426 
Nicaea,    First    Council    of,    159, 

169  ff. ;  Second  Council  of,  188 
Nicholas  II,  201 
Nielsen,  F.,  39 
Nonjurors,  319  f..373 
Nutting,  J.  D.,  446 

Old  Catholic  movement,  65,  124 

Oman,  J.,  53 

Optatus,  162 

Order    of    Corporate    Reunion, 

383  f- 

Orders,  Anglican,  354  ff.,  407  f. 

Origen,  155,  182,  256 

Orthodox  Eastern  Church,  2875. 

Outlook  for  Roman  Sacerdotal- 
ism, 277  ff. 


460 


INDEX 


Palmer,  W.  (of  Magdalen  Col- 
lege), 288  ff.,  300,  304 

Palmer,  W.  (of  Worcester  Col- 
lege), 323,  338,  349,  382 

Palmieri,  D.,  24,  36,  234 

Parker,  M.,  314 

Pascal,  B.,  263 

Pastor,  L.,  211,  214 

Pelagius  II,  184 

Penance,  the  sacrament  of,  257 
ff.,  3°9  f- 

Perrone,  J.,  9,  92,  234 

Perry,  W.  S.,  333 

Peter,  the  apostle,  his  alleged 
primacy,  137  ff. 

Pfleiderer,  O.,  431 

Philaret,  288,  296,  302,  308  ff. 

Phillips,  G.,  4,  16,  32 

Pius  V,  20,  217;  Pius  VII,  39,  70; 
Pius  IX,  24,  27,  40,  87  ff.,  105 
ff.,  214,  264;  Pius  X,  10,  137, 

347.  389  f. 

Platon,  296,  301,  307  f. 

Polity,  in  the  Orthodox  Eastern 
Churches,  297  ff. ;  Anglican 
theories  respecting,  313  ff., 
347  ff.,  404  ff. 

Polygamy  in  the  Mormon  sys- 
tem, 442  ff. 

Pratt,  P.  P.,  438,  441 

"Priest  in  Absolution,  The," 
368  f. 

Priesthood,  Mormon,  theory  of, 
437  ff. 

Private  judgment,  52,  402 

Procter,  J.,  12,  206 

Protestant     Episcopal     Church, 

332  ff- 

Pruner,  J.  E.,  265 

Prynne,  G.  R.,  356 

Public  schools,  judgments  re- 
specting, 27  ff. 


Pullan,  L.,  351 
Puller,  F.  W.,  160,  171 
Purcell,  E.  S.,  17  ff.,  68,  89,  91, 

103,  385.  387.  39i  f- 
Pusey,  E.  B.,  100,  322,  329,  337, 

340,    346,    360,    363,    367    ff., 

380  f. 
Putnam,  G.  H.  P.,  48 

Raskolniki,  the,  292,  305,  310 

Raynaldus,  O.,  202,  212  f.,  220 

Reformation,  antipathy  to  the, 
374  ff.,  423 

Renouf,  Le  Page,  88 

Riegger,  P.  J.,  59 

Rigdon,  S.,  444 

Ritualism  among  Anglo-Catho- 
lics, 330  f.,  332  f. 

Rogers,  H.,  383 

Romanizing  tendencies,  378  ff., 
427  ff. 

Rose,  H.  J.,  323 

Rosmini,  A.,  135,  250 

Russia,  ecclesiastical  develop- 
ments in,  287  ff. 

Russo,  N.,  6,  206,  235,  260 

Sabatier,  A.,  198 

Sacraments,     estimate     of,     in 

Roman  Catholicism,    222    ff. ; 

in    Russian    Church,    305    f. ; 

among    Anglo-Catholics,    356 

ff.,     414     ff. ;     among     Neo- 

Lutherans,     430     ff.;     among 

Irvingites,  435  f. 
Salmon,  G.,  51,  157 
Sanday,  W.,  414 
Sardica,  Council  of,   164  f.,  168 
Sasse,  J.  B.,  223  f.,  229,  235,  242, 

244,  259,  265,  311 
Schanz,  P.,  5,  183 
Scheeben,  M.  J.,  6,  n,  204,  229, 

234,  241 


INDEX 


461 


Schell,  H.,  233 

Schlegel,  K.  W.  F.,  60 

Schulte,  J.  F.  von,  25,  62,  122 

Seabury,  S.,  332 

Simon,  R.,  n 

Sixtus  IV,  213 

Smith,  Joseph,  437,  442  f. 

Smith,  S.  B.,  22 

Smith,  S.  F.,  230 

Society  of  the  Holy  Cross    369 

Spalding,  M.  J.,  14,  68 

Spottiswoode,  J.,  317 

Staley,  V.,  351  f. 

Stanley,  A.  P.,  412 

Stap,  A.,  95  f.,  101 

State,    the,    as    related    to    the 

Church,  15  ff. 
Staudenmaier,  F.  A.,  61 
Stephen  I,  153  f.,  157 
Stone,  D.,  356,  360  ff.,  365 
Strossmayer,  J.,  122  £. 
Supremacy,  papal,  117  f.,  137  ff. 
Syllabus  of  Errors,  25,  41,85,98  f. 
Synod, the  Holy  (of  Russia) ,  29  7  ff . 

Talbot,  G.,  68 

Talmage,  J.  E.,  438,  445 

Taylor,  I.,  401 

Tertullian,  147,  256 

Theiner,  A.,  in 

Tondini,  C.,  300 

Tractarianism,  313  ff. 

Tracts   for   the   Times,    323    f., 

334  f-,  347  f-.  3?8  f. 
Transubstantiation,  2395.,  246ff. 
Trent,  Council  of,  120,  227,  232, 

239  f.,  244,  257  f.,  346 


Tyrrell,  G.,  389 

Ultramontanism,   16,   56  ff.,   70 

ff.,  86  ff. 

Unam  Sanctam,  the  bull,  19  f. 
Unigenitus,  the  bull,  203  ff. 
Union,    as    an    obligatory   ideal 

for  Protestants,  449  ff. 
Urban  II,  206;  Urban  VIII,  202 

Vatican  Council,  9,  16,  104  ff. 
Vatican  decrees,  1 1 7  ff. 
Veuillot,  L.,  84,  91,  102 
Victor  I,  156  f. 
Vigilius,  2ii 
Vilmar,  A.  F.  C.,  430  f. 
Virgin,  the,  devotion  to,  100  f., 
130  ff. 

Walsh,  W.,  340,  364  f.,  367,  369, 
384 

Ward,  W.,  34,  322,  331,  376 

Ward,  W.  G.,  34,  328,  375  f.,  386 

Werner,  K.,  60  f. 

Wessenberg,  H.  von,  59 

Whately,  R.,  322,  407 

White,  W.,  333 

Whitgift,  J.,  315 

Whitham,  A.  R.,  339,  351,  370 

Wilberforce,  H.,  328 

Wilberforce,  R.  I.,  328 

Wilberforce,  S.,  368,  422 

Wilbois,  J.,  309,  311 

Wiseman,  N.  P.  S.,  89,  383 

Witchcraft,  papal  attitude  to- 
ward, 220  f. 

Wood,  E.  G.,  342 

Young,  B.,  440,  443  ff. 


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